Letterpress is the oldest fashion of printing known as 'relief printing'. The use of letterpress printing is falling, due to the emergence of other more economical and flexible printing methods, such as offset printing. Letterpress printing required lots of preparation time in order to setup a print job. The print rollers, that print the image, must be cast from metal, which is both time consuming and expensive. Lithographic offset printing is far less expensive and takes much less time to create the printing plates.
Letterpress printing exerts varying levels of pressure on the print surface dependent on the image characteristics. More pressure is exerted to produce highlight dots than is required to produce shadow dots. Throughout the print run, the pressure of the press must be closely monitored, and constantly adjusted, to ensure that the roller pressure is spot on. These adjustments are often fiddly; take a long time, and a very costly.
Letterpress presses come in a variety of forms inc. platen, flatbed and rotary. A rotary press is generally used for high-speed work. Web-fed rotary presses are still widely used today in the newspaper printing industry. The other types of letterpress presses are being used less and less, as printers opt to use newer more efficient, cheaper printing technologies.
Whilst somewhat antiquated, letterpress printing is able to produce fine, crisp typography. This is why small publishers will often use letterpress printing to print limited edition, handmade books.
Some people enjoy letterpress printing as a hobby to produce their own stationary, greetings cards etc.
Letterpress printing exerts varying levels of pressure on the print surface dependent on the image characteristics. More pressure is exerted to produce highlight dots than is required to produce shadow dots. Throughout the print run, the pressure of the press must be closely monitored, and constantly adjusted, to ensure that the roller pressure is spot on. These adjustments are often fiddly; take a long time, and a very costly.
Letterpress presses come in a variety of forms inc. platen, flatbed and rotary. A rotary press is generally used for high-speed work. Web-fed rotary presses are still widely used today in the newspaper printing industry. The other types of letterpress presses are being used less and less, as printers opt to use newer more efficient, cheaper printing technologies.
Whilst somewhat antiquated, letterpress printing is able to produce fine, crisp typography. This is why small publishers will often use letterpress printing to print limited edition, handmade books.
Some people enjoy letterpress printing as a hobby to produce their own stationary, greetings cards etc.