Letterpress printing with hand-set type is a very physical process. Instead of laying ink down flat on the paper from an offset image, you’re pressing inked bits of metal into the paper, making an impression. Everything about this printing method is hands-on or mechanical.
It’s also a very dirty process, which is why printers wear aprons. Whether you’re printing directly from hand-set foundry type or from a polymer plate created from a digital file, there’s a lot of ink involved.
Some might even go so far as to call it a dangerous process. If you include hot-metal typesetting from a Linotype or Monotype machine, there may be scorching dollops of lead spitting about, too.
Traditionally, letterpress printing is done with foundry type—little chunks of metal with backward letters carved on their ends—which you can hold in your hand. This type is hand-set, which means placing each piece of type, one after the other, into a line of words held in a small metal frame—the composing
