Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Canada’s LargestGraphics & Printing Show
graphicscanada.comInternational Centre Toronto, Nov 21-23
KNOCKING OUTTHE COMPETITION25% OFF! www.shop.heidelberg.com
1 800 363 4800
The New Peace of Mind:Saphira Consumables
.com
MaximizeMaximize Your
PrintingPrinting Profits
Maximize Your
Printing Profits
PROVEN PLATE PERFORMANCE.
PM40010868 R10907 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to 610 Alden Rd., Suite 100, Markham ON L3R 9Z1
A S OFTEN HAPPENS WHEN A SONtakes over his father’s business, RichPauptit, President of Flash Reproduc-tions since 2009, could have decidedto modernize the most antiquated
aspect of his 35-person shop, its letterpress department. Based in Toronto, Flash runs anadvanced mix of offset, toner and prepresstechnologies required to compete in one of theworld’s largest and most aggressive print mar-kets; but the company’s letterpress departmentbrings something exceptional to the table.
This segment of the business employs twopeople and essentially the same relief printingprocess with cast-metal type (or alternativelymolded plates) that Johannes Gutenberg firstcommercialized in Germany in 1440. In mod-ern times, owing largely to the skill and time-intensive makeready letterpress requires, it hasmostly fallen out of commercial use in favourof faster, cheaper processes that do a reason-able job – at least to the untrained eye – of sim-ulating letterpress results.
Yet alongside Flash’s versatile offset, screen,and toner machines, the company’s letterpressdepartment continues to function five days aweek and generates around 10 percent of thecompany’s total dollar volume in revenues.
Similarly, President Neil Stewart of AnsteyBook Binding, a company of 15 people, alsobased in Toronto, says the ancient process ofletterpress contributes significantly to achiev-ing the company’s goals and represents about10 percent of their business. Tracing its rootsback to 1882, Anstey was recently purchasedby Specialties Graphic Finishers, which isowned by Norm Beange – one of North Amer-ica’s leading experts in finishing, who has always focused on the business potential ofcraftsmanship.
Both Pauptit and Stewart perceive a growinginterest in letterpress printing among boththeir customers and the general populace. Theprocess tightly fits today’s burgeoning craft-focused brand of consumerism, in which indi-vidualism and specialization have supplantedthe bygone days of mass communications, in
which inboxes are crammed with spam andmulti-media messages are lost in a sea of
unspecified advertising. Behind the reborn romance of letterpress, which
is engaging a new craft-conscious
generation, Stewart, Pauptit and book artistGeorge Walker share their secrets of the ancient process’ commercial viability today.
Flash Reproductions“My dad, Carl, started our company in 1969,”recalls Pauptit. “He taught me everything Iknow, and when I started working with himabout 15 years ago, I thought letterpress print-ing was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. It wasthe Norman Rockwell painting that everybodywants to live.
“It would be very easy to say my dad’s ap-proach was antiquated, and we should forgetabout letterpress. But that wouldn’t work forme. We need to find our niche with the peoplewho still care about what printing was in theold days, not just a means to an end.”
Recent examples of Flash’s letterpress workinclude foil-stamped business cards made“ridiculously thick” by duplexing several layersof different-coloured substrates together. Onesuch spectacular job featured eight multi-coloured layers die-cut with a window enclos-ing a loose cubic zirconium diamond. The toplayer was clear plastic, allowing the viewer seedown through six intervening layers to thechrome-mirror-finished base.
Another recent job was a letterpress invita-tion to a high-end hotel, elegantly packagedand shipped with a wooden diorama box con-taining an exact dollhouse-sized replica of oneof the hotel’s deluxe guest rooms.
Pauptit says the rationale behind both prod-ucts was to give their recipients the satisfactionthat comes from owning beautiful, well crafteditems: “Nowadays printing is not usually themost efficient means to give somebody infor-mation. Usually you do that digitally. So at thisstage in history, if you don’t love somethingyou’re printing, I almost do not see the pointin printing it. Of course, this is an overstate-ment, but I do not want to do throwaway printbut rather things people really care about andcherish.”
Pauptit explains how letterpress is not onlyconsistent with these values but also why itsrarity makes it fit as an integral part of his cur-rent business model: “Although the print mar-ket is obviously shrinking, no one in their rightmind thinks print will shrink to nothing. Atthe same time, only certain companies will
survive – the ones who are best at serving themarket segment they’re in. Companies with alot of press power will do all the large-volumeprint, because they’re the cheapest and fastestat it. Companies like ourselves will never be thecheapest or the fastest or have the most capac-ity, so we have to be something else.
“Instead, we are focused on collaboratingwith creative designers and advertising agen-cies to produce specialized, high-quality work–things other printers view as a complicatedpain in the butt. A significant percentage ofour business also consists of doing hard stufffor other printers – and we’re comfortableserving that niche of the market. Our motto is:‘If someone else can do it, then someone elsecan do it.’”
Another factor encouraging Pauptit’s inclu-sion of letterpress in Flash’s business model ishis own subjective reaction to the digitizing ofprint, which he thinks takes all the fun out ofprinting by dumbing down the specifics ofeach job. Clients, for example, can only choosethe type of stock they want from a limitednumber of qualified substrates: “Digital print-ing turns a printer into a logistics companyconcerned with how quickly and cheaply theproduct can be delivered. It takes all the cre-ativity and craftsmanship out of printing, allthe little items of flair you can add to a job.Every project gets boiled down to four-colourprocess on either something glossy or some-thing matte.
“In the end, you’re just pushing the greenbutton and something comes out the otherend,” continues Pauptit. “I’m not going to be aproud member of this industry if I have themost green buttons to push.”
In 2011 Pauptit specifically chose an MGIMeteor DP60 Pro because of its versatility andunique production capabilities relative toother toner machines on the market. His com-pany can order and install parts themselvesand tweak the press mechanically to handle anunusual variety of substrates – unlike equip-ment made by other manufacturers, who re-quire users to restrict their stocks only toqualified brands on pain of voiding their war-ranties or service contracts. Even the rules gov-erning the operating systems of some tonerequipment can leave printing companies stuckin cycles of unwanted investment.
Letterpress
JUNE 2013 • PRINTACTION • 17
REVIVALStory by Victoria Gaitskell
Continued on page 18
“Service contracts that won’t let youtake apart the equipment and put it backtogether yourself prevent you fromknowing the machine as well. These typesof limitations don’t allow you to be cre-ative,” says Pauptit. “We consider our-selves craftsmen and presses the tools ofour craft. We’re dead set on keeping thatalive.”
Anstey Book BindingAnstey Book Binding is based on similarprinciples of craftsmanship and sensorygratification. “Anstey Book Binding is theepitome of low-tech and old-fashioned,”reads the company’s homepage. “Weknow that flawlessly finished print is amedium that emotionally resonates withaudiences because what they hold in theirhands connects with their mind and tac-tile senses.”
In 1994, Neil Stewart bought and grewthe company in partnership with C.J.Graphics owner Jay Mandarino and latera third partner, then sold it to SpecialtiesGraphic Finishers in 2010. Stewart, whooriginally studied Fine Art at one of Que-bec’s general and vocational colleges, fol-lowed by printmaking at Lake PlacidSchool of Art (New York) and design atthe Ontario College of Art and Design(OCAD, Toronto), remained President ofAnstey after the sale.
After his studies, Stewart’s first enter-prises in the 1980s were a hand paper-making mill and a letterpress shop heestablished in Toronto. His interest incommercial letterpress developed after hebecame disenchanted with the devalua-tion of typesetting that coincided withthe rise of computer-generated design, aswell as the regular huge financial outlaysfor technology that the digital alterna-tive required. He says in those days hecould obtain letterpress equipmenteasily and cheaply because commer-cial printers were ditching and re-placing it with newer technologies.
“Initially I was designing a lot of promotional material for pho-tographers,” recounts Stewart.“Posters were trendy back then,so I suggested to my clientsthat, for the same amountthey were paying for 1,000posters, most of which
ended up in a stack collectingdust under their bed, they could pro-
duce five beautiful books instead… givethem as promotions to their five mostimportant clients, and perhaps expect toreceive two new jobs out of the five.
“This idea proved successful and ledto one of the approaches we still followtoday: Using letterpress to embellish finebook binding. The combination pro-duces showpieces that achieve a prettydeep penetration with clients becausethey are so beautiful to feel and look at.”
Today Anstey’s letterpress equipmentcomprises three cylinder and three platenpresses (mostly Heidelbergs), plus twoproof presses (both Vandercook). “Be-cause letterpress is very finicky, we havealways had more capacity than actualwork,” Stewart admits. “Even for the mostexperienced operator, letterpress requiresa lot of trial and error. In the commercial
arena, time is the thing you have the leastof, so it’s very challenging to do letter-press commercially and do it well. It’s alsoespecially hard to scale it up in Canada,where the market is 10 to 20 timessmaller than in the States.”
Most of Stewart’s current letterpressclients are corporations located in theGreater Toronto Area (GTA), and somein the United States. He says the Ameri-can clients love the fact that so many diverse graphic-arts services are concen-trated in the GTA, whereas in their owncountry they might have to farm out eachof the various processes required for aspecial project – say, letterpress, binding,and foil stamping – to several differentbusinesses, each in a different state.
For Stewart’s operation, letterpressserves both the functions of decorationand problem-solving. For example, for aset of 25 slipcases, Anstey might letter-press the labels because they would beharder and cost more to print in litho. Orif they are producing a small number ofbooks for a bank or real-estate agent,Anstey might use letterpress to producea decorative end paper, divider page, orbox liner to enhance the piece.
Stewart says that, although letterpressstationery has declined in popularity, thecompany still produces business cards,some part of full stationery programswith letterhead and envelopes, for clientslike financial firms, architects, and inte-rior designers, for whom a strong firstimpression matters. Their other letter-press stock in trade includes personalizeddiplomas for a prestigious college and en-graved invitations costing $15 to $20 apop for high society and corporate eventsand product launches.
Youth movementFor about the last five years, Pauptit hasobserved the rise of an urban subcultureinterested in craftsmanship, a movementthat is also prompting a renewed interestin letterpress. At age 37, he says he isabout 10 years behind the people actu-ally driving the trend, since his letter-press clients tend to be graphic designersof either gender in their twenties or thir-ties, most of whom work at ad agenciesor studios but also have extra work onthe side. “And they are designing mostlyfor a younger market, which makes it anespecially interesting trend,” he says.
Pauptit notes that, when local collegesbring their students to Flash Reproduc-tions on tours, although the students are impressed by the company’s digitalinterface and multi-million-dollarpresses, when they reach the letterpressdepartment, they get really excited. He also concludes that people in generalare becoming more interested in tradi-tional letterpress process simply becauselately his company is producing more of it.
“People are bombarded with every-thing as virtual reality on a screen, butthey don’t get as many opportunities tohold a well crafted object in their hands.As a reaction to the lack of real substancein our world, some people are craving areal connection to craftsmanship andphysical handmade objects,” Pauptit the-
In February 2013, to better connect craftsman-ship with the Canadian design community, FlashReproductions partneredwith Unisource Canada to launch Wayward Artsmagazine (waywardarts.ca), a publication highlightingthe work of leading designers. Each month, a different award-winningstudio is given access topaper and print craftsmento produce the magazineof their dreams.
Rich Pauptit took over Flash Reproductionsfrom his father in 2009.
Continued on page 28
orizes. “For example, business cards areoverwhelmingly unnecessary in this ageof e-mail, yet people still connect emo-tionally to them. They even fetishizethem a bit. Along with sewn hardcoverbooks with head and tail bands, they areconsidered The Real Thing.”
Stewart is encouraged by the growingnumber of young letterpress printerswho are working out of small studios intheir basements or garages. “I think it’sgreat that younger printers are interestedin letterpress and forming their own littleeconomies, because we need a largermarket, even if it does push pricing downa bit. When I was that age and goingaround to print shops trying to get infor-mation about letterpress, printers toldme it was a stupid idea, and no onewould help me. So I just did everythingmyself. I even ended up building my ownmachine to make polymer plates.”
However, Stewart hopes a market in-flux of letterpress products by inexperi-enced operators will not lower thepublic’s appreciation for the quality ofthe letterpress craft. He says that with let-terpress it’s very easy for the uninitiatedto produce some kind of printed resultwithout knowing very much about theprocess, but it actually becomes more dif-ficult to do well when your knowledge ofthe many variables and your eye for qual-ity increase.
“Three practitioners will have five dif-ferent approaches, and that is what makesletterpress so interesting,” he says. For ex-ample, Stewart’s own brand of finessingthe process includes adding multiple il-lustrations, multiple colour overlays, andexploiting the secrets of masterfulplatemaking and ink distribution to en-able the use of very small, fine type.
“Letterpress is a lot like offset used to
be in the days when you could re-ally feel it, before all the computer-controlled presses and aqueouscoatings,” he adds. “It is first andforemost a craft. Craft takes timeand experience.”
The book artistGeorge Walker, who studied atOCAD at the same time as Stew-art, is now an accomplished Cana-dian book artist, wood engraver,and Associate Professor of print-making and book arts at OCAD.Besides supplying creative direc-tion and editorial work for twosmall Canadian presses, Walkerproduces limited-edition books inhis garage letterpress studio,equipped with a Vandercook proofpress, shelves of moveable type,and book-binding equipment.
His recent works include twowordless novels, each composed ofover 100 wood engravings: The MysteriousDeath of Tom Thomson (an influentialCanadian landscape painter who livedfrom 1877 to 1917) and Conrad Black (ac-complished by Internet collaboration withthe media magnate while Black was servinga recent Florida prison sentence). The 13signed, numbered, leather-bound copiesthat Walker produced of Conrad Black soldout to almost instantly to university, insti-tutional, and private collections at a priceof $1,500 each.
Walker says that, although his college-age students belong to the electronic age,they also feel the fascination of printedbooks as tangible objects: “They buy a li-cence to read an e-book, but they are alsointerested in creating and owning printedbooks that hold special meaning for them.
A valuable resource for anyone wish-ing to become reacquainted with themarvels of letterpress printing is theMackenzie Printery and NewspaperMuseum, Canada’s largest workingprinting museum, located in the village of Queenston, Ontario (five km north of Niagara Falls).
The jewel in its rare collection of letterpress, typecasting, and lithography equipment is a LouisRoy Press dating from the 1760s,Canada’s oldest press and one ofvery few original wooden presses remaining in the world.
The museum occupies the restored Georgian home and printshop of publisher and political activist William Lyon Mackenzie,who lived and worked there from1820 to 1824. The building was officially opened in 1938 by PrimeMinister William Lyon MackenzieKing, Mackenzie's great-grandson.The on-site museum came later, in 1990, through a joint partnership between the Niagara Parks
Commission, that owns and oper-ates the facility, and a seven-personvolunteer Printery Committee, thatmaintains the collection and securesthe necessary operating funds.PrintAction Publisher Sara Young,
who has served on the Printery Committee for over 12 years, wroteme in a recent e-mail: “I do believethat it is very important, perhapseven more so today, to preserve antique presses and the ancillaryequipment that pushed our industryforward and allowed the Canadianprinting industry to flourish in Canadafrom the time of the war of 1812.”
From May until Labour Day, theMackenzie Printery is open from 10a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (last tour at 4:30p.m.). After Labour Day, it operatesonly on weekends until it closes forthe season in October, either rightafter Canadian Thanksgiving or Hallowe’en, depending on its volume of visitor traffic.
Besides special exhibitions and a dedicated library, the Printery
museum offers all visitors not only a tour of the facilities but also theunique opportunity to try their handat setting type and operating two of its eight antique presses. Eachvisitor also receives a free posterand bookmark. In all, it’s good value for the nominal admissionprice of $5 (less for children under 12.)
Additionally, for the second yearrunning, in response to growing interest, the Printery offers two full-day, professionally oriented,hands-on letterpress seminars for$96 (less for students), six peopleper class.
The museum is always collectingnames of people who are interestedin participating in their teaching programs with a view to expandingtheir offerings. The contact for thispurpose is Harold Meighan: 905-684-7672 / [email protected].
For general information about thePrintery, contact: 905-262-5676 /[email protected]
A LETTERPRESS EDUCATION:The Mackenzie Printery and Newspaper Museum
Neil Stewart, President of Anstey, has a fine-arts background from schools in Quebec, New York and Toronto’s OCAD.
and can appreciate it better, especiallywhen it’s well done.
“Letterpress is the pinnacle of thisphenomenon because the actual processof making it is beautiful. The ritual of set-ting type has something calming aboutit,” says Pauptit. “People like it in the sameway that there’s a huge popular interestin coffee shops. Instead of just grab andpour, there’s an interest in the special ma-chinery and all the steps, craft, andhuman connection involved in produc-ing a physical, aesthetically pleasing thingcreated Just For Me.”
Pauptit believes that other social fac-tors prompting a revival of interest inprinting and letterpress are changes inour interactions with electronics and inthe workplace: “When I was a kid, every-body’s parents were hung up on makingsure we understood computers andemerging technologies. Everybody waspushed into university with the goal oflanding a white-collar job that mademoney by sitting at a desk, not sweatingon a production line like me.
“But now we’re ruled by electronics. Atwork many people sit at a desk and inter-act with a computer, and their jobs havebecome complicated and abstract. Ifsomebody says they’re a software QA en-gineer, many others probably don’t evenknow what that means. Now people see itas desirable thing to do a job like printingthat produces a beautiful, tangible object.”
“I don’t want to turn into a crusty oldgeezer lamenting the loss of the good ol’days,” concludes Stewart. “I just want to sharewhat I know to help people understand let-terpress and use it most effectively.”
28 • PRINTACTION • JUNE 2013
GaitskellContinued from page 19
!"#"$%$&'()*(&+,&&&-./00&1'(&2(".*34
!! "" ### $$ ### %% && '' (( )) ** ++ ### ,, )) ** -- && .. )) //TT 9 0 5 . 3 7 0 . 1 8 7 5 FF 9 0 5 . 4 8 2 . 9 4 2 8 EE U V _ U B S @ y a h o o . c a
9 5 E a s t B e a v e r C r e e k R d . U n i t 6 R i c h m o n d H i l l O N L 4 B 1 L 4
Quality ! " # " $ %
DD ii gg ii tt aa ll && OO ff ff ss ee tt
!"#"$%"&'
00111111 ### #### 22 334400$("#"$)"&'
00111111 ####### 22 335500
!"#$%&'(%&)#*+&,$-.#*&/
*+,-.'/"01234"&-1556,&7*8%0/(&&9&6,,,&9&6 7 856,&:"#)';&&9&6,,,&9&6 7 9<!=&.'0'%(3>&$*?/00".&8'0)&@&3"0A*(&/#)&10/2&2("#?"#8&/03'&/A/"0/B0*C
!"#$%&'()&%"*"'+",+)-."++%/01%2'//)1)#3%
&'()&%"#2%45"#3'3$-
::;;<<=="""//;;>>"""??@@"""%%AA"""BB@@CCDD"""""""
! " # " $ %
& ' ( & # " ) & *& ' ( & # " ) & *
555511111111 #### #### ## ## 2222 6666 77770000111111111111 #### #### 2222000000007777
551111 ### #### ## ## 22 88 55 00111111 ### #### 22004400
!"#$%
&"#'()*+
DD&!';/??&E(?C>&
FG'(#G"00>&&HI&&JKF&DLM
E$("+=FGH;@
E$("IJKL?ME$("IJKL?M
Now!
ENVELOPES
8-Colour Mitsubishi 40” w/ Perfector6-Colour Mitsubishi 40” w/AQ5-Colour Mitsubishi 40” 4-Colour Heidelberg 25” w/AQState of the art CTP & Film Output
Best deal on time on budgetBest deal on time on budget
T: 416-299-8568 F: 416-299-3977Prompt estimates
When you have deadlines to meet…
Trade PrintingFast turnaround & competitive trade pricing
BROKER / ACCOUNT PROTECTED
www.bestdealgraphicsprinting.com30 Production Dr., Scarborough, Ontario M1H 2X8
NEW NEW Over 50,000 sq. ft. Facility 24/7 ProductionFull In-house Bindery and FinishingFully Automated ProcessBooks, Magazines, Catalogues, Posters, Brochures, Flyers, etc.
Toll Free: 1-866-719-3339
BROKER / ACCOUNT PROTECTED
BROKER / ACCOUNT PROTECTED
BROKER / ACCOUNT PROTECTED
TRADE PRINTING
ca.linkedin.com/in/vicg8
@vicg8
vicg8.blogspot.ca
“Having a signed copy of a book by anauthor who has influenced us but haspassed away helps people feel a closerhuman connection to that author. Thatconnection is lost if we just look at aWebpage. The simulation is not as goodas being in the presence of the primarysource. That’s why original objects likeMichaelangelo’s Sistine ceiling persist inculture. The colours and spacial relation-ships of the original cannot be repro-duced in the same way.”
Walker predicts it will become moreand more expensive to produce finebooks, allowing the gulf to widenbetween e-books and cheaplyprinted paperbacks versus hand-crafted collectors editions createdto last and be handed down to fu-ture generations. As someonewho produces the latter, Walker isin an ideal position to vouch forthe printed book’s ability to pre-serve the past.
He points out that the world’sarchives still possess incunabula(books made before 1501) thatlook like they were printed yester-day. “Unlike electronic communi-cation, the book is a provenvehicle to travel through time,” heemphasizes. “But I think youwould be hard pressed to findanyone with the equipment to de-code and run a book stored on anobsolete five-inch floppy disk.And the entire U.S. 1960 cen-sus was lost because it wasarchived on magnetic tape andmoisture corroded the tape.”
Along similar lines, Stewartrecalls how in the past centurythe manufacturers of micro-fiche data-storage equipmentsucceeded in persuading pub-lic libraries and governmentsthat microfiche was the bestway to preserve their archives;but because microfiche records were laterfound to deteriorate and the equipmentproved expensive and cumbersome, themicrofiche process has largely been re-placed with digital-data storage systems.
Popular appreciation of letterpressPauptit believes people like the experi-ence of holding a piece of analogue let-terpress printing in their hands, becausethe antique process’ slight embossing ef-fect allows them to understand quicklyhow the letters were pushed into thestock. Walker agrees that the appeal ofmodern letterpress includes the tactilequality of the type. He says, although old-time letterpress printers laboured tomake the type just kiss the paper, con-temporary letterpress printers push theimpression deeper into the substrate soviewers will recognize that it’s createdwith letterpress. (On a technical note,Stewart recommends that practitionersavoid Bold Slab type if they want the im-pression to remain visible.)
Pauptit identifies one social factor con-tributing to a new appreciation of letter-press as the fact that in relative termsconsumers are no longer bombardedwith unwanted print. Consequently, hesays, consumers are not as sick of print
Phot
o by
Mic
helle
Wal
ker
