Old meets New: recovering an Albion Press

Just Got Made • 01 Apr 2014

Letterpress printing has undergone a resurgence in popularity in recent years – and with good reason. The quality of print, when compared to modern techniques, is visibly higher albeit through a much more time consuming and arduous process. However, the freedom of expression moveable type awards you more than makes up for this hard work.

The short film ‘Recovering an Albion Press’, documents the reclamation of an Albion Press, popular around the turn of the century, charting its journey from an antique in a corridor back to a fully working letterpress. The main focus of the film is the handover of the Albion from LEFA Print – a large-scale modern day print works- to New North Press, who specialise in traditional letter press techniques.

The film ultimately documents the love and passion both Ed (LEFA Press) and Richard (New North Press) have for the medium of print, and their determination to find a common ground between the old and modern world of printing. A particularly nice moment is when Ed talks about the press saying,  “quite often as clients would arrive in the building…they’d say ‘oh you’re not printing our job on that are you?’, and i’d obviously laugh and say no, but secretly i’d kind of wish we were a little bit”.

Just Got Made is in agreement with the opinions on the New North Press website, that the future of letterpress looks bright. The combining of modern techniques alongside historic processes makes for a whole new world of creative possibilities to be explored – for as long as there are people willing to invest their time and passion to take it forward. It also undoubtedly helps to counterbalance the dominance of digitalisation over so much of modern day creative practice, and this can only be a good thing.

justgotmade_letterpress

Video by Tom Stokes

Further reading:

www.new-north-press.co.uk
www.lefaprint.co.uk