Why this project?

I have been passionate about letterpress for several years, following a chance encounter with a tray of type purchased for £20 from a car boot sale. I have also spent time working with a letterpress printer to improve my skills. This experience confirmed my enthusiasm for letterpress. If I am able to raise funds to print my own typeface I will achieve my aim of working in the tradition, but also reinvigorating it. The opportunity to work creatively with letterpress - to subvert it - is what excites me most about the medium.

What is a chapbook?

Have you ever seen a chapbook, or cheap-book as they were sometimes called? Chapbooks were affordable books sold to the masses for as little as a penny in 17th and 18th century Britain. Their content often included myths, ballads, folk tales, and were made with woodcut blocks and letterpress. I am currently making one of these books following processes as close to the original methods as possible.

The Fall of Manifestatia

For the content I have written my own story, to be printed in a typeface of my own design, and with woodcut illustration.My chapbook is called The Fall of Manifestatia and explores the idea of Utopia in a magical realist style. It follows the standard 24 page format traditionally used for chapbooks, with each page being 6 inches by 4.

Why do I need funding?

This chapbook is an essential element of my MA in printmaking. As the typeface is my own design, I cannot typeset the text as I would with an existing typeface, and require funding to convert my text to photopolymer plates suitable for printing on a Vandercook printing press. This is where the expense of the project comes in.

Thank you!

Thank you for reading about my project. Any donation is greatly appreciated. Please also share my project with anyone that you think may be interested!

Another example of my work: