The conference will take place in the final week of january
30 and 31 Jan, 2020.
This conference — Post-Digital Letterpress Printing — aims to reflect on the current status of letterpress practice and research nowadays. As in other international contexts, in the last few years, we have been slowly witnessing the revival of this technology in Portugal, mainly due to the surging interest of the modern printers and typesetters — the current generation of graphic designers and visual artists. With or without formal training, they have been experimenting, learning and merging this craft into their digital processes “reinvigorat[ing] traditional letterpress values from a design perspective” (Clouse, Voulangas, 2009), following the trend of international graphic designers.
By focusing on the activity held in the portuguese territory — by the letterpress workshops, artists and works produced — within a more global international trend, we aim to gather researchers and practitioners of this traditional practice in the current post-digital editorial design context of the XXIst century’s activities and technologies.
The conference is being organised by the i2ADS in partnership with ID+ and uniMAD. We also rely on the collaboration of our partners from the EASR, ESE and ESAD—Idea to organize and to host the workshops together with them.
Program
During the conference, we will hold several activities:
- Warm-up workshop(s) on traditional letterpress or current post-digital practices
- International keynotes conference(s)
- Oral presentations of research and practice (result of the call for papers)
- Exhibition of works
ESE Workshops
PDLP · Warm-up workshops: Within the scope of the PDLP conference we will also promote and host a series of warm-up activities — more workshops — to get the general public in sync with the curent traditional and post-digital hybrid approaches.
Digital vs. Analog
Jorge Araújo (ESE-IPP)
Saturday, 25 january 2020, ESE (Printing workshop) 10h–18h (6h)
Workshop Description
The participants would engage in a 2 part workshop, one that combines both the old and new technologies — the digital and the analog. In the morning, participants would be introduced to the method of Risography, one that simulates silk screen printing, but in a automated fashion. They would draw patterns, either by hand or on the computer, that will be taken to the RISO machine, to be printed on A3 sheets of paper. With this machine participants may experiment with knockout and overprint, creating different graphics and achieving new colors. In the afternoon participants will take the work produced in the morning, which would have been left to dry a bit, into the letterpress workshop. There they will take their paper stock and cut it to business cards measurements (8,5x5,5mm) leaving the proper bleed and slug. After that they will compose their own letterpress business card, stating their name and title (for those who struggle with the title, one shall be awarded to them: “rookie letterpress printer”). Lastly, they will take their composition to the little Adana Press and print out their card.
Letterpress and almost-revolutions
Rita Carvalho (Delli - Universidade Lusófona), Jorge Araújo (ESE-IPP)
Thursday, 30 january, ESE (Printing Workshop), 10h00 – 17h00 (6h)
Workshop Description
On the imminent date of January 31st, the motto for this workshop must be Revolution, or rather: ALMOST-REVOLUTION! Thus, some ideas of non-consummated revolution found in texts, music and objects will be explored and expressed through letterpress (in a more typographic or illustrative way). Examples of Work from Robin Fior and Alan Kitching, among others, will be provided for inspiration.
This workshops will take place at the Escola Superior de Educação printing workshop room. Registration and Payment instructions: http://registo.ese.ipp.pt/pdlp/
More updated information soon on the conference website: https://pdlp.fba.up.pt/
