Interning at Hatch Show Print

Hi Friends! I’m back with a long overdue post. This summer, I had the opportunity to intern at Hatch Show Print, one of the country’s oldest letterpress shops. It’s been in continuous production since 1879! That’s not a typo; 145 years & counting! Today I will dive into a bit of what I learned and more.  

Why?

I will say, that was the number one question I received from close acquaintances & friends. I’m not a newbie to this industry. I’ve been a designer who has worked in print for over two decades. I love letterpress printing. I am a newbie to it. Yes, I’ve known about it for years. But it wasn’t until recently that I really delved into the practice and fell in love.

So last spring, when I bought my letterpress machine; I told myself I would learn as much as possible. And I did. But, getting an opportunity to learn, in person, with people who have done it for years & have a passion for it, takes things to a whole new level. And with a place like Hatch accessible to me, I figured, why not apply. All I can do is ask, all they can say is no. But, if you don’t ask, you don’t know. And they said yes. I was beside myself with joy!

Another reason I wanted to work at Hatch was to learn the traditional letterpress methods. During my pursuit of letterpress knowledge, I took an amazing online course*, Learn Letterpress by Brit Rohr of Swell Press. I highly recommend it to anyone starting out in letterpress. It is very comprehensive & well worth the investment. I walked away confident enough to not only purchase a letterpress, but also to buy plates, and start printing. (Modern letterpress printers use photopolymer plates. This allows almost any design & font to be printed.)

However, I still wanted to learn the roots of letterpress, how to handset type, the how and why of letterpress layouts & printing with a kiss impression; which is very different from modern letterpress techniques. At Hatch, the character and look of the wood & metal type printed is what lets you know it’s letterpress. With modern letterpress, the thick cotton papers, deep impressions and design is what lets you know it’s letterpress. I felt like, in order to break the “rules”, I needed to know what “rules” I was breaking. And so the adventure began!

The Hatch Experience 

My intern period was six weeks long. Over the course of those six weeks, we learned about wood & metal type, the characteristics, the type drawers layouts, and what and where the many fonts at Hatch were located. (Six weeks is not long enough for mapping out all the fonts. They have so many!) We also learned how to typeset fonts, the Hatch poster design technique, ink mixing, color separating, proofing, making ready and of course, printing. Plus, so much more.

I was able to design and print 5 posters; one of which was a collaboration with another intern. And have part in printing a few other jobs for fellow designers. Overall, printing was my favorite part. I could print all day, even if I didn’t design the work. It’s so amazing every time to see the ink & form on the press and see a design come to life with a roll of the cylinder. It never gets old! 

All my posters were printed using a Vandercook Universal 1. That was my first experience with a cylinder press. (I own a tabletop platen press & a Chandler & Price 8 x 12 Oldstyle platen press.) I fell in love immediately with the Vandercook! It’s way less dangerous than my platen and the print size is much larger. I’d love to get my hands on a Vandercook. It’s definitely on my wish list and I’m keeping my eyes open for one.

Working in such a creative environment, with such talented designers and materials that have been used for decades, was not wasted on me. Many times, I stared at the wall of wood cuts, wood type and specimens and thought about the stories they could tell, if wood could talk. Of all the hands that had touched each piece, of all the designs that were printed, of all the employees and interns who had used each one. It’s kinda amazing to think about. 

All the designer/printers I worked with were very generous with their time and knowledge. They were patient with all my questions and curiosities.  And I’m very curious by nature. It was also fun to see their design process and ideas come to life. 

The most challenging part for me was learning how to gauge what size font would fit within my design parameters. But, that is nature of traditional letterpress, you have to work with the fonts you have, within the print parameters of your press and capabilities. 

As a graphic designer with Creative Cloud, a million royalty free websites and any font I want one click away, it was hard at first. But, I learned to lean into it. I also figured out that finding the right font size was like working a puzzle that you didn’t have the complete picture of until the end. After a while, it was more of an adventure than a challenge.

I would be remiss to mention, for all my book binder friends, there is a lot of measuring involved in letterpress printing. If hate all the measuring to needed to bind a book, letterpress printing is not for you. I didn’t mind it, once I remembered how to use points & picas. 😆 I had forgot about those guys since design school. 

I could go on for days on lessons learned & experienced. But I’ll wrap it up by saying that I’m sure all the lessons will find their way into my own letterpress practice - a blend of the modern & traditional - with a story to tell. 

*affiliate link