Hot off the 8 x 5 press!

Enjoying printing on my Adana 8x 5 again. It’s been a while as the last few months I’ve spent most of my energy developing my new website. So with a new website I thought it was time to make some freshly printed business cards.

eightfivepress - woodblock letterpress linocut

Typeset with Univers lead type. Printed with grey /blue linseed oil based ink.

I printed these while listening to the wonderful Debbie Millman (designmatters) in conversation with writer and adventurer Caroline Paul. 

"Debbie Millman is a is a writer, educator, artist, brand consultant and host of the radio show Design Matters”.

Debbie interviews artists, writers, educators, designers, musicians, poets, film makers, bloggers including Seth Godin,  Alain de Botton, Eileen Myles, Tim Ferriss, Alison Bechdel, Krista Tippett, Maira Kalman, Oliver Jeffers, and many many more. 

"And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both." — Debbie Millman

To the moon and back and second hand books

Bloom and Curll bookshop, Bristol

Thank you Lilla Duignan at seeingthings for your inspiring blog post last week including a link to Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project via Brain Pickings. Over the weekend I made a trip to a few second hand bookshops in Bristol. The last shop I popped into was Bloom and Curll who's shelves were filled with delightful books beautifully arranged in colourful patterns. Jason had just received a huge pile of books about Japan, particularly Kyoto and quite a few children's stories written in Japanese and English. So here's my contribution to a kind of - sort of- sorted books!

Japanese books from Bloom and Curll

Perfect timing to stumble upon these books as I have been slowly learning Kanji for a little while now and have predicted, from how long it has taken me so far, it will be at least 6 or 7 years to complete the online course! (https://www.wanikani.com) And that's just Kanji with a bit of vocabulary. (It's supposed to take about 1 or 2 years.) These books might help to speed things up as I've imagined half way through the course I will have forgotten everything from the beginning so it could well be another 6 or 7 years to refresh my memory and then I may have forgotten the second half once I've remembered the first half so another 6 or 7 years on top of that! So in about 20 years (possible light years) I may have grasped a small bit of Kanji and tiny bit of Japanese vocabulary and even made a trip to the moon!

Luke Jerram's Moon at Bristol University

Spring Forward - Root & Rise

Website Refresh & Spring Clean

For the past month I've had the wonderful opportunity to been working with Nicky Spear and Sarah Preece from Root and Rise. Nicky and Sarah have been helping me kick start some new ideas for eightfivepress and make some changes to my website. After a few meetings we decided it needed a complete refresh. So...I'm really excited to be launching my new website during the Month of March just as the buds are blossoming and the daffodils are springing up their radiance. Please do have a look and let me know what you think. Hopefully you should find the site much easier to navigate and will be able to view my work too! 

Woodblock Mini Prints

I now have my very own online shop where you can purchase my mini woodblock prints of antique Japanese netsuke. To find out more about this project, you can follow the journey of my woodblock process at Into The Wood.

I hope you enjoy the new site! : ))

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woodblock | linocut | letterpress  

Linocut Workshop - March Hare

Tea and Oranges

Lovely workshop this morning exploring ideas for Julie's linocut. Very fitting that Julie chose a hare for this month of March! Our Mad Hatter's tea party included a healthier option of fresh fruit with plenty of cups of tea. 

Julie brought her inspiration into fruition, producing a lovely chocolate brown hare, by mixing vermilion, cobalt and orange relief printing ink.

For more details about linocut workshops click here

Laurie & David Wedding Invitations - Part 1

Last year I printed wedding invitations for Laurie and David. I filmed the process of printing the invitations on the Adana 8 x 5 platen press using lead type for the cover. The inside was printed with a polymer plate. 

This short film (3m16s) shows part 1 of the printing process - printing the cover using vermilion ink on 100% recycled card. 

I hope you enjoy it!

Typesetting & Printing on the Adana 8 x 5
Printed and filmed by eightfivepress
Music ‘Daylight Ends’ by Snails © 2017