Little Book of Letterpress

I'm so happy to see letterpress art being so mainstream these days. Just 10 years ago it was much harder to find letterpress artisans that practice this centuries-old printing technique. According to the Little Book of Letterpress, by Charlotte Rivers, the practice fell out of favor in the late 1950s.

Luckily for us this elegant art form is going through a major revival right now. We're seeing a huge crop of awesome letterpress studios springing up all over the world. Nearly every wedding invite or business card I receive is printed in letterpress. It just goes to show that as long as the public can appreciate beautiful artwork, the ancient art process will endure no matter how labor intensive it is.

I'm swooning over these designs from Letterpress Delicacies in Austin, TX. Aren't they just gorgeous? Each design is printed with hand-mixed, oil-based inks.

Johanna Anderes of 12fifteen created these lovely 100% cotton stock coasters. The Stamford, CT letterpress designer was inspired by 1960's Scandinavian design.

Little Book of Letterpress is available at www.chroniclebooks.com.

For editorial consideration, a review book copy was provided for this post.