In the public eye

Our friends at Ben Pentreath Ltd tell us that Someone Famous has bought a copy of our Always Do Sober poster. We are, of course, far too discrete to tell you who it is, but even we know that their name is frequently to be found in the tabloids.

Our entry about that poster attracted the comment that the quote is from Ernest Hemingway. We agree that the link provided does show that, but the book from which we got the quotation clearly says it’s Twain. The clincher for us is that it sounds much more his style.

Bridie in Ben’s shop had told us that Tutti Frutti was going to be in this month’s Vogue. This week we broke the habit of a lifetime and bought a copy but there was no picture of our poster. The magazine are, we hear, getting hell over the omission.

Meanwhile we have been contacted by the Financial Times’ How To Spend It Magazine. After seeing our books, posters and Christmas cards they decided to show our Xmas Christmas card. They say it will be in their 21 November edition. The card is one of seven designs we have in our store.

Our last post was about the Reynolds Stone prints we had done. We’ve seen the exhibition now, and it’s terrific. It’s on until 21 November.

Hand & Eye onYouTube

When Leo Griffin was with as an intern in July he made a film of our Heidelberg cylinder press. This included locking his camera in a forme and running it in the press. Has this ever been done before, we wonder?

Updated type list

We’ve finally got round to updating the type list on our web site. It was a bit fiddly but quite simple once we found out how to do it. Next time we buy new type there’ll be no excuse not to put it on the list right away.

Nobody’s Perfect

At the end of Some Like It Hot Tony Curtis tells Joe E Brown that he can’t marry him because he’s really a man. Brown replies that nobody’s perfect.

We’re put in mind of that scene when we come up against one of the few disadvantages of our wonderful Pinchin Street premises: when the sun shines we’re almost blinded by reflections from the cars parked over the road.

As well as being about as close to cinematic perfection as possible, Some Like It Hot is the name of a fabulous CD by Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums featuring Carmen Getit.

Cropper treadle platen

This Acme Cropper treadle platen used to be in Bruton Museum in Somerset. They no longer have room for it, and Lucy and Robert Carter have given it a temporary home. They would like to pass it on, together with some type, to someone who can use it.

If you’re interested please contact Lucy.

Ben’s Big Gig – poster printing

Hello, regular Hand & Eye readers. This entry isn’t being written by Phil, as he’s downstairs doing some actual work. Instead, this is Nick; I did a couple of weeks’ work experience with Phil back in September/October last year, and I was so successful at bringing biscuits to the workshop that Phil asked me to come to work for him this year. My skills have greatly improved since then, and I now make a pretty good cup of tea as well. This post indicates yet another expansion in my responsibilities, as I’m now in charge of long, rambling musings on whatever work I’m up to.

Enough of me. To business! My old friend Ben Walker is a constant user and champion of social networking sites, and Twitter in particular; you may even have heard his musical observations on the Twitterverse through YouTube (or possibly even the actual radio). Ben is attempting what we believe to be a world first, in integrating mobile blogging, social networking and music performance by putting on Ben’s Big Gig on 1st May this year; if that sounds like an amazing mix of activities, that’s only because it is. Have a look at Ben’s site to find out more aout it. He gave us a call yesterday, asking if we could make him some posters to promote the show around Oxford. Saying, perhaps unwisely, that he trusted me to lay it out as I saw fit, his design brief read…

“Eye-catching is better than classy.  Play on high-tech vs. low-tech.  Funny is better than good.”

An excellent brief, if ever I heard one. With that in mind, we immediately set to designing with my usual pensmanship.

With such clarity already present in the design, the rest of the process was almost a foregone conclusion, but we felt a little experimentation was in order. It was only a short step from here to a first proof from our wood and metal type…

Turns out that was ok; sadly, there were many more words still to fit on the page.

And yes, after a great deal of tinkering, making ready, changing to silver ink and putting in the words ‘The Funky Llamas’, we were done…

Thanks to Ben for providing us with a great project; if you, dear reader, have an event for which you need a poster, you know how to get in touch. See you all down at The Big Gig…

Value for money

Flushed with the success of our recent picture hanging, we thought we’d put up some more. A local corner shop didn’t have picture hooks, but they did have a picture hanging kit, which included hooks and pins. The pins weren’t up to much, but as a spirit level was also included and the whole thing came to £2.20 we weren’t going to complain.

Happy birthday to us

Hand & Eye started trading twenty-four years ago today. Some things haven’t changed since then: it was cold and snowy that day in 1985, just as it is as we look out of the window now. Our location is almost unchanged, as our first workshop was about 100 yards from where we are now.

Much is different. Back then we had a tiny space partitioned off on the top floor of a former wool warehouse. Our plant was a 10 x 15 inch Arab treadle platen and an 8x 5 inch Adana. Now we have some 1600 sq ft of converted railway arch containing two Heidelbergs and a FAG, some of the best of the final flowering of letterpress technology.

We started before the personal computer revolution, and we still have our account books with their letterpress printed rules. They made way for an IBM-clone PC at the beginning of 1987, and that too was superseded by Macs in 1990. We’re on our fourth now, an iBook G4. 

Most of the intervening years have been spent away from this area, in Clerkenwell, Bethnal Green and, for nearly fifteen years, in King’s Cross. There have been many changes around here in that time. The DLR now runs at the back of our workshop, and some of the old buildings have been converted into expensive flats and offices. Others have been demolished and replaced with more housing. The council estate opposite our front door still houses a largely Bengali population, and while it does not look too prosperous it has at least been refurbished in the time that we’ve been away.

The changes will continue, of course, and we intend to be around for a good while yet to witness them.

Renovating a Wharfedale

The small Yorkshire town of Otley produced printing presses for over 130 years up to the 1980s. The most famous was probably the Wharfedale, a design developed in the town but not patented, and so made by a number of different firms. Many thousands were manufactured, and some are still in use. We would like to have seen the ‘Mammoth’ ordered in May 1898 by Forman of Nottingham. It had a bed size of 78.5 x 67 inches, and took nearly a year to build.

Some years ago we were given a copy of Printing Review from 1952 that included an informative article on renovating a Wharfedale. We have passed on copies to fellow printers who have taken on one that was showing the signs of its age, and we have now posted it here.

Jessica Coatesworth

Jessica is in the final year of her graphic design course at Camberwell College of Art. She’s on work experience with us, and is currently working on a poster for our stand at the letterpress day at St Bride this Friday.