Letterpress course at KhiO

I was very happy on Monday before it started and even happier at the end. Teaching others when they are eager to learn, creative, want to learn and has such a drive to actually use the equipment is just a dream.  We started off with wood type on Monday and started setting metal type on Wednesday. By the end of the week they had almost no questions and was printing loads of beautiful prints. It seems like everyone had a great week, and I hope they will use the equipment further.

Here are some of the prints they produced during the week.

I set this to show how to work with wood type.

Load of ink and mixing of inks.

 

I had to show them how the Heidelberg machine works, and they got to try. 

Mini letterpress course :)

Next week, on Tuesday 13th of March, I will put up an miniletterpress course for everyone that wants to try, look, learn, feel, touch and smell what I love so much :)
It will be open for those that want. Because of space, equipment and only my two hands and two eyes, I can take only 8 people on this course. Even with one or two the course will run! If many more wants to come, I’ll try and arrange for another one later :)

Time: 16.30 – (until we are tired and want to go home)
Place: Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo
Price: 300,-

All material is included other than paper. Bring what you got or what you want to try out!

Let me know if you want to come

Sent with …

It all started with a quote from one of my tutors in High School "keep it simple stupid". Some days all I want is to print something cute, simple and with the little "extra" to it. This card has possibilities beyond my fantasy, only your imagination is the limit to create a card that will but a smile on the lucky receiver's face.

Sometimes you feel empty

Through a life time I'm quite sure most people sometimes feel a bit empty. What makes you feel that way can be different things. Maybe something a close person said or did, or maybe it was the shock of somebody's too early death. This piece is very personal to me, and it was done several weeks ago but I didn't feel like showing it before now. Today I have this empty feeling again. Look forward to tomorrow and a day in the Letterpress studio to get rid of it.

Half or a pint?

Why London-people seem to assume girls only drink half is still a wonder to me. But I keep getting the question and I'm tired of it! I'm sorry but: "why have a half when you can have a pint?"

Happy Easter everyone :D

A simple days work

Some days in the studio I get an idea and then I just have to set it even though I'm busy working on another project. It happen last week! Some students and teachers from NKF (in Norway) came to visit the studio at Uni,
and I got asked to show them how letterpress works. I wanted to show off one of the presses, but I got no work set up for it. Whenever that happens I also go for the first idea in my head. This time to set a bit changed quote from a song of the Norwegian band DumDum Boys. The text says "Ha hjertet på rett steed" (Have the heart in the right place) and I set in very quickly, but ended up really liking it. Hope you will too :)

Letterpress workshop at KhiO

A few weeks ago I had a workshop with mainly letterpress and a bit of book binding together with a MA student Ane Thon Knutsen from KhiO and a printer and teacher from Oslo By Steinerskole Thomas Pfeiffer. The students seemed happy, all of us teachers were happy and I really enjoyed myself.

It felt a bit strange to teach in a studio I've never worked in before. But after a while I felt I got how things were organised there. The students worked very independent which allowed me to learn this amazing Hiedelberg Platen press. I was smiling, printing and loving working with the norwegian letters æ, ø and å.

Thomes Pfeiffer shows how it works!

The lock-up of my design of only æ, ø and å.

The piece printed, and of course in green.

Holding a Letterpress Workshop

To say I'm not overwhelmed and happy would be lying. Last week I went to visit Oslo National Academy of the Arts to have a look at their Letterpress Studio. It was beautiful! With Norwegian letters I've been looking for and sometimes dreamt about (when you got a passion it shows up in your dreams too). There were presses and typefaces I hadn't seen before. Together with Ane Thon Knutsen and few others I've got an offer of holding a Letterpress Workshop there from 28th of February and through that week. I'm very excited! And will take photos to show how it went and to show off the studio!

Maybe love?

Spring is said to be the time for love. Not that I would claim there is a special time for love. A couple of weeks ago I had a huge clean up in my letterpress prints at home. During this I discovered this small and simple print, with a single line of words. Originally it was printed for a possible extra with a wedding invitation for a friend. But later to be found not right for that purpose. Since that I forgot about it existence. 

Take it as it is, one simple line of words. "Maybe love will find us again for there is always tomorrow."

Card for a special person

Valentine's Day is around the corner. But why not send a card to someone special for you already now? A perfect card for today, tomorrow and every other day. Simple words: "Forever yours, always me, forever here" (Evig din, alltid meg, evig her). Printed in dark orange/brown on orange cards.

Good or bad cheating?

There are ways to cheat. Always have been always will be. Occasionally it can be good, but mainly it should be avoid at all time. Considering printing with letterpress only imagination can set a boundary for ways to cheat. To tell you a secret; I do cheat when I’m making a one of piece for a special occasion. Actually I won’t even cheat then if I know for sure a person with good letterpress skills will watch be set and print. Bad cheating or lack of interest and passion in working fully with letterpress is shown on the two images below.

“Locking up” type like this can both destroy the leading, spacing, furniture and type. (Leading is mainly used for line spacing and locking up type with furniture; spacing is used for letter/word spacing.) The designer has here used most of these wrongly, at least according to normal usage. Why do I complain about it? First of all; finding letterpress equipment in good condition is hard, rare and expensive. Second; seeing people (here students) treat this valuable equipment like trash makes me frustrated. Third; how long will universities let behaviours like this happen before they get rid of it? One thing is for sure; I will have a lot of troubles letting anyone near my studio and equipment when I’m fully set up in the future.

(As a small ending; the way to “lock up” type is shown below.)

New year, new projects

Happy New Year:) I'm all ready for this years new possibilities and for more fun! Just had one day in the letterpress studio on Tuesday, and just as a reminder for everyone: mistakes can be beautiful!! :)

A second reminder: please keep the studio clean! I hate it when everything is a mess and dirty. When I get my own studio it will be perfect :) Tidy and clean :)

If you have any ideas to projects, let me know :)

Letterpress face

I love getting inspiration from others work. And there is so much lovely letterpress work everywhere. This is just a love project. Can't believe they did a face with type. Check out The Disciples Of Design :)

Keep it clean

Working with letterpress is a dirty job, fun and joyful dirty job. But there is no reason for not trying to keep it as clean as possible. I don't own the studio I work in, but I'm the one spending most time in there so it feels a bit like mine. And I hate finding it untidy and dirty.

For sure this is a studio at a Uni, and there is no news that Art and Design students tend to not care how they leave a studio. Every week I'm in the studio I hear complains about students leaving the studio dirty. Last week I found already "cleaned" rollers dirty in the drawer! They were full of ink. One student around asked if they were not clean enough. How can he think things are clean when I got my hands full of ink when I touched it?

Why am I telling you this? Because of the importance of keeping the area you work in clean is huge. At least if the studio is not yours. I hate finding the studio untidy and dirty. It makes me bad and I lose a bit of the joy of being their.

When I get my own studio you need to prove you are tidy and clean up your mess before you get to be in it.

Be tidy, be clean, be happy, make me happy!

"Ainafun"

Some days you can't find any inspiration and you're just empty. Those days are when you should just let nothing control your head or work. Play, enjoy, smile, laugh and just work :)
I had one of those days yesterday and after some hours (in a freezing studio) I ended up with this very personal print of how I see myself in a way. I smile a lot, laugh ofter, do funny things/jokes, saying just pointless things.

And this will also be a gift for a very special Aina :)

Event tomorrow "Letterpress: Forward thinking"

For every person interested in Letterpress this it the thing not to miss tomorrow! I'm very excited and I believe it will be many nice talks and interesting people to meet. It all happens at St Bride Library in London. I will let you all know how it was an share some images from the day.

Letterpress video

I feel very lucky for knowing other with an interest in Letterpress, and most of them are very nice to share what they find with me. I really love that! This video from A Design Mafia shows a Letterpress printer using a press that works the same way as one of the ones I use. I get so inspired just by a short video like this.

Thank you Aleksander for sharing it with me :)

Pantone Formula Guide

You can say a Pantone fan is both a Designer and a Printers friend. They are expensive to buy, but they will and should last for a long time. There are different Pantone fans for different purpose. The one I love is a Formula Guide (one for coated and one for uncoated) which shows which colours to mix and how much of each to get to one specific Pantone colour. And the names/code of every Pantone colour. But you can't get the CMYK or RGB values of any of the colours.

I love it for the fact that is shows a range of colours (and I love colours), it is simple to understand and it works! A good example is to tell you about my experience the first time I tried to mix the colour brown. It turned out everything else but brown. It sounds maybe a bit silly and you may think I'm stupid, but it was not that logical for me. Most colours I know more or less how to mix, but with this I'm 100% sure how to get one colour that I want. If you haven't seen one, please do. It is amazing!

Christmas card 2

November is here, and Christmas is even closer. I've started thinking about Christmas gifts, and it brought up another idea for a new Christmas card. Big in size, but still with a playful twist to Merry Christmas is Norwegian ("god jul"). The main colour for Christmas is to me red, a nice proper red. That is why I kept it in pure red.

Detail images of the card.

After printing the whole card in red I had to play a bit more with colours. I created a limited edition with green and silver.

Sneak peek

Normally I don't like to show of any design before its proofed, printed and all finished. But this is absolute beautiful and I just have to show it to you. I'm already thinking about Christmas and doing another Christmas card. These are a couple of fun proof I've just taken of it, and I really like them:D hope you do too!