Learn as You Kern

April 15, 2016 / Posted in Fun, Inspiration, Local

Last week, the ArtHouse team took an afternoon to do a letterpress printmaking workshop with our friends over at Genghis Kern. Through past collaborations on printed materials that we've designed for clients, we have developed a great working relationship with the Genghis Kern team. Accordingly, we decided it would be a great learning experience to take over their shop for the afternoon and hand set some type to make some custom posters of our own. Jason taught us about the history of typesetting and letterpress, showed us some of his rarest typefaces and presses and demonstrated some of the various techniques that characterize modern day letterpress. With each ArtHouse Designer armed with a fun quote or two, we set to work choosing typefaces from the innumerable drawers of wooden and lead type and began setting type lockups. Jason started up two presses, one with gold and one with black ink and the team had a great time experimenting with various printing techniques. An added bonus was discovering the unique (and sometimes more than 200 year-old) character of each typeface or icon block. With quotes by Ron Swanson, the Little Prince, Edith Piaf and a few of our favorite office idioms, we produced a handsome set of posters and enjoyed getting back in touch with the roots of our profession while supporting local designers and makers.