Glenn Fleishman Interrogates the Past

A Sad Day: The Type Archive Distributes

I sadly just heard the news that The Type Archive in London will be moved from its location and its collections put into storage. The announcement by the Science and Museum Group (SMG), a set of quasi-public institutions that operates independently, doesn’t sugarcoat things. The Type Archive preserved the typefounding and wood-type history of the United Kingdom; they overlapped in part with the St Bride Library (or St Bride Printing Library), which has a smaller piece of typefounding history and more generally preserves UK printing history.

The Type Archive was led for decades by Sue Shaw, once an editor at Faber & Faber and other publishers, who became a fierce and relentless advocate for the preservation of Monotype’s manufacturing plant for its hot-metal type production equipment and its archives, as well as pulling in centuries of type foundry history acquired from Stephenson

Cartooning

Peanuts Flong Unboxing: Live!

I recently bought nearly 200 Peanuts flongs, the molds used to make metal plates back in the days of relief printing, and they arrived from Sweden today! To celebrate this incredible treasure trove, I had a live unboxing on Thursday, May 20 at 10 am Pacific to explore the strips as I saw them for the first time. Along the way, I answered questions and provided some background on how newspaper syndication worked historically with etched plates, flongs, and stereotypes. You can watch below. (Post updated after event.)

I showed off a number of four-color Peanuts color separations, some original etched plates used to make flongs, and the 40-pound-plus newspaper plate of comic strips that I acquired last year!

Publishing

Tiny Type Museum Sold Out!

Just days after writing up the third anniversary of the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule project on this blog, the final seven museums sold in a flurry of interest. The book, Six Centuries of Type & Printing, remains exquisite and fully available. You can order it here. Read an excerpt.

Crowdfunding

Third Anniversary of the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule Project

On 29 January 2019, I launched the biggest artistic, writing, production, and commercial project of my life: the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule. Conceived of months before with Anna Peterson (formerly Robinson), who provided the woodworking expertise and case manufacturing, I envisioned the Tiny Type Museum as a way for people with an interest in type, typography, or printing to obtain a collection of actual artifacts, historical and modern, that they could use to educate themselves, share with others, or use as a teaching tool. We would make about 100 of these museums, each containing their own unique set of dozens of items.

I talked to a number of people I knew in the letterpress and museum world to get their take on whether this was an interesting idea and to be sure I could acquire the stuff I needed. I felt positive enough to move forward. In addition

Monotype Electro Type Matrix: 3D Model and 3D Print

My latest Kickstarter project to celebrate printing history and ensure knowledge of the past continues to be remembered in the future is now up: the Monotype Electro Type Matrix: 3D Model and 3D Print aims to create a detailed 3D model of a historic kind of type mold used to make metal type for hand setting, and then produce 3D prints from it. The project will model a single matrix as a base form, and then I will distribute the digital file under a broad Creative Commons license to allow others to build upon it. (Backers get exclusive rights to the model for the first six months, then I’ll re-release under the expansive license.)

Monotype created this kind of matrix, the term for a mold in the printing world, to compete in the large-scale production of type larger than its first market, the smaller sizes used for runs of

Cartooning

A Historic Bit of Peanuts

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Updated 16 July 2021: Added a scan of a copy of the printed strip as it appeared in a newspaper that I purchased off eBay.

As regular readers of this blog know, I love flong. (If you don’t know, here’s an introduction and a history.) I’m always on the lookout for unique flongs that help illustrate aspects of printing history. Despite likely 99.999% of all flongs being burned or discarded after use or because they were remade due to errors, judging by eBay and other sources, a substantial number survive. And, clearly, some

Teaching

Workshop on Laser Cutting and Letterpress

Under the auspices of the newborn organization Partners in Print (PiP), the letterpress spinoff of sorts from the School of Visual Concepts, I’ll be teaching a two-hour distance-learning workshop on integrating 2D laser cutting with letterpress printing. I’ve taught two versions of this before, one in person and one online, and both have gone smashingly, with a lot of bidirectional learning and excitement.

The course will be offered June 21 at 10 am PDT. (The time was picked so we could sweep in North America, Europe, and Australia.) I’ll lecture and demonstrate principles of design, production, and assembly, and answer questions along the way as stay late to answer questions at the end. The cost is $75; there’s a scholarship price of $50. PiP puts its scholarship price this way: “PiP is committed to limiting financial barriers when possible. We leave it to you to decide

Publishing

Gratitude for a Year Finally Ending

I’m grateful this year is nearly over and I’m grateful my family has remained safe during 2020—and that we’ve all managed to keep ourselves occupied. It’s a hard lift, and I know exactly how privileged we are, as I can read and see around us how many people are struggling. That fact keeps me hard at work, knowing what a gift it is to have a purpose, and thankful to all editors, patrons, podcast networks, product purchasers, and colleagues I’ve had the chance to work for and with this year.

A Little Help by Taking Control

I put at the top of my list of 2020 achievements releasing two free ebooks with Take Control Books. Joe Kissell is the stalwart publisher, running the business with his wife, Morgen. Not only did Take Control provide a significant percentage of my 2020 income, as people are

Bookselling

A Great Holiday Gift and Museum Updates

The year has nearly fled (and thank goodness), but I continue to soldier on with projects.

Six Centuries Book as a Gift

Earlier this year, I produced my book Six Centuries of Type & Printing. It was set in Monotype hot metal, printed by letterpress in London, and bound in Germany. The book starts a bit before Gutenberg in the mid-1400s, looking at previous efforts to spark a fire on making multiples, and then focus on how that German inventor pulled together many different elements to create the blaze that still burns. I take you through all the innovations of the last 600 years, up to the digital era, and explain nearly lost elements of printing history.

The book is a great holiday gift, and I can ship immediately in the US (first-class mail) and worldwide (UPS expedited). Make a note in the Delivery Instructions field at checkout if you

Laser cutting and letterpress workshop

This Saturday, June 13, I’m teaching a virtual workshop about pairing laser cutting with letterpress printing. It's intended for people interested in either, but more for those with letterpress affinities wanting to figure out how to work laser-cut elements into their work. You don’t need to own a laser cutter or a press to attend.

The two-hour course is part of a set of virtual workshop offered by the School of Visual Concepts. I taught a one-day, in-person workshop a couple of years ago on the same topic, and I’ll be presenting results of that workshop and what I’ve learned since, along with examples of other people’s work and a lot of practical advice!

Books

Six Centuries of Type & Printing Now Available

A book over a year in the making, Six Centuries of Type & Printing, is now available for purchase. Starting a few years ago, I began to research printing history more intensively, and then stepped it up alongside my project the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule. In collecting type and printing artifacts for these museum collections, I also gained terrific hands-on insight into key aspects of the development of the mass production of metal and wood type and advances in printing technology. This included previous visits to museums of printing and a trip to M&H Type (part of the Grabhorn Institute) in San Francisco last June.

I spent months writing this 64-page book, which starts well before Johannes Gutenberg in examining previous inventions of movable type and mass production of book pages, before diving deeply into how this member of a Mainz, Germany patrician family seemingly invented

Podcasting

Amy Redmond & Jenny Wilkson on Letterpress, Community, and Injecting New Life (the Tiny Typecast)

The latest episode of my new podcast, the Tiny Typecast, is out. This one features my mentor, Jenny Wilkson, who started the letterpress program at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle, and Amy Redmond, an artist and designer who is a valued and long-time member of the local printing community. They are buddies, as you can tell from the podcast.

Listen to this episode by subscribing or downloading via Apple Podcasts, search for “tiny typecast” in your favorite podcasting app, or use this subscription URL to add it directly. You can also listen via the episode page.

I get them to talk about what led them into letterpress, which is a fascinating subject for people who are younger than, say, 70 years old. Both started relatively early in their careers and have spent much of their adult lives working in the medium and teaching it to others. Both love