Type Tuesday: Hacking Gutenberg with Erik Spiekermann

Tuesday 5 March 2019 in the Bridewell Hall 7-9.30pm

Come to St Bride Library for Eye magazine’s popular quarterly Type Tuesday event – the first one of 2019.

Spend an evening with the legendary Erik Spiekermann, exploring what he calls ‘post-digital printing’.

At his studio p98a in Berlin, Spiekermann and his colleagues have developed new production methods (including a laser plate-maker, electronic layouts, new distribution channels etc.) to bring historical printing presses and other related machinery from the analogue into the digital age. 

‘Digital pre-press enables us to make productive use of the old equipment which connects us with our industrial and cultural heritage,’ says Spiekermann. ‘Apart from the hardware, we need to maintain expert knowledge and professions otherwise threatened by extinction. Quite a few of the old machines and processes are still around; they work mechanically and will probably survive all of us, but they cannot easily be used economically. This is where we come in at our workshops in Berlin.’

See https://vimeo.com/308470790 for more enlightenment. 

In addition to Erik, whose long career in Europe and the United States has embraced every aspect of design and typography (see http://www.eyemagazine.co.uk/f... in Eye 74), we will be joined by several more letterpress practitioners, including Elizabeth Ellis and David Marshall of The Counter Press (see https://vimeo.com/256198758) and Pat Randle and Nick Loaring of Double Dagger 

This will be an entertaining, informative and provocative evening that examines contemporary letterpress printing in myriad ways. 

All proceeds go to St Bride Foundation. Book now to avoid disappointment.

There will be a stall where you can buy the latest issue (Eye 97, the second of two magazine specials) and bargain back issues.