Workshop images

Courier Press has offered public workshops, free for any MSU student, and open to the public and local community. Each workshop provides basic letterpress instruction and a chance for participants to be creative, have fun making, and explore a new medium.

Each workshop lasted 2 hours and focused on created one-line type specimen sheets to help document the studio's approximate 400 cases of type. In the workshops participants typeset metal type to create a collaborative type specimen page and which was then printed on a 1948 Vandercook No. 4 Printing Press. Participants took home a copy of their own specimen pages for their keepsake and each page will be bound to create a Type Specimen Book, highlighting the unique qualities of each typeface from the collection. This workshop is a hands-on experience, and letterpress printing is a technical trade that takes physical work—the printed pages are truly a result of time, effort, and hands-on involvement by each participant. 

Workshops in the News

Scott Parker, an Assistant Teaching Professor, at MSU attended a public workshop and described the experience in an article that was published in Bozeman Magazine. Read the article in full by clicking on the image below. 

Letterpress article image

Workshop Outcomes

The workshop serves as an opportunity to learn about letterpress, brainstorm writing concepts, and also to set a line of type in metal, but in a larger sense it is also helping to organize, document, and disseminate the metal type collection at MSU. This historic and robust collection is organized by type style (serif, sans serif, decorative, script, and blackletter) and the workshop has allowed for visualization of each type style in printed form.Currently, all of the sheets have been printed for each of the almost 400 cases of metal type, and the final binding style and finished touches for identification are being executed. Below are some images of participants and the one-line type setting print quality. 

A participant uses the california case to set metal type. A Proof of the specimen print. A participant brainstorms copy for the specimen print. A participants holds a specimen printA participant takes their print home. A participant prints the metal type form. A specimen print next to the metal type form. A series of ornamental pages printed. A participant holds up the specimen print. Workshop participants set their line of type. A page of the ornamental type specimen print. Participants set lines of type from cases.

Click on an image to view as a slideshow.