Gingerly Press Workshop at Hamilton Wood Type Museum

Those who have done a lot of hand-setting of type and letterpress printing know it can be a long arduous process to produce a finished edition of prints. Some of the best work often requires hours of pre-planning before even getting on press to print. However, great things can also happen when you do just the opposite and instead, embrace spontaneity and quick design-thinking on press. In this workshop we will place limitations on time and graphic elements to illustrate personal memories through quick minimalist compositions.

In this one-day workshop, each student will arrive with a paragraph-long personal memory they wish to illustrate. We'll highlight key descriptors, characters and concepts from your story and match these to a limited selection of wood & metal type & ornaments from the Hamilton Museum Collection.

The class starts at 10 am, then the afternoon will be divided into five 20-minute quick printing periods, each followed by a short 5-minute class critique session. During each brief printing period, students will be asked to work within their limited selection of graphic components to produce a printed composition illustrating their personal memory. These short printing periods are designed to force quick creative solutions to the task at hand. By the end of the five sessions, students will have five graphic illustrations representing their personal memory. Then they will be given the final hour of the workshop to tweak and reprint their favorite composition.  

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Break down a written story into graphic components for visual storytelling
• Design 2-D compositions using the fundamentals of design
• Develop spontaneous creative-thinking solutions when designing with limited time and resources
• Implement quick proof printing techniques within their design process

Who should take this class?

This class is open to all levels of printing and design experience and will be beneficial to designers, printers and creatives who wish to improve their design-thinking and visual-storytelling skills with fast-paced exercises on press. 

Prerequisites:

Each student should arrive with a descriptive memory, about 800 characters or less, typed and printed (not via letterpress please!). The more descriptive, the better!

No other formal prerequisites; however, basic Vandercook Press operation knowledge is helpful.

Lindsay Schmittle is the owner and operator of Gingerly Press, a letterpress design studio working primarily with handset type in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gingerly Press creates colorful & minimalistic paper products inspired by Lindsay's adventures in the outdoors and her passion for the antiquated handset letterpress process. While Lindsay designs and prints the Gingerly Press product line, dabbles in teaching letterpress workshops, and creates custom paper products for happy couples and small businesses, her most recent passion project is called The Printed Walk: Georgia to Maine, a letterpress-printed chronicle of her 2017 Appalachian Trail thru-hike. Lindsay graduated in 2013 with a BFA in Visual Communications from the University of Delaware. In a class full of digital designers, Schmittle often felt the outsider while experimenting with analog methods for her design process. She stumbled upon the Art Department's hidden gem, Raven Press, a letterpress printing studio, nearly deserted by the masses of digitally driven students. Schmittle began dedicating her spare time to learning how to set type and print with the antique equipment. She purchased her first lot of printing equipment in February 2013 and began Gingerly Press after graduating later that year. Lindsay's work has been recognized in magazines, books, blogs, podcasts and on the local radio, and has toured in gallery shows across the United States.

As a bonus... you can make plans to join us Friday, September 27 from 5-7 pm to learn more about the work of Lindsay Schmittle of Gingerly Press. This Pop-Up event will have an exhibition of letterpress printed posters, a shop, and a presentation. Her talk begins at 5:30 pm. Lindsay will share her process and tell us more about a special project she created, The Printed Walk: Georgia to Maine. The Friday event is free and open to the public.

This class costs $125. Space is limited, so reservations and a $65 non-refundable deposit when you sign up are required. The $60 to fulfill the full cost of the workshop is due at the beginning of the workshop. We accept cash, credit card or check.

Because of the nature of the pressroom and the pieces being used, participants in the workshop must be 18 years or older. Please complete the registration form below to reserve your place in the workshop. If you have any questions, e-mail us at info@woodtype.org or call 920.794.6272.