Two New Books from HM

Two new books nearing the press...

First out will be a new collection of 12 poems by Harold Budd, titled Angel. The book will be printed on sheets of Barcham Green's Bodleian paper (80 g, white laid), of which we have just enough for an edition of 26 lettered copies (plus a few H.C.) The text will be set in 18-pt Perpetua italic (the same font we used for Iskandariya) with our newly acquired Monument for titles. It will be a single signature (28 pp, 7 x 10 inches) – the thinness of the paper avoiding any awkward bulking – sewn into a paste paper wrap, with a printed tissue jacket. Issued in a slipcase. Some portion of the edition will be offered for sale (price TBA). To be issued before the end of the year.

Angel was somewhat unplanned for in HM's schedule. The poems were initially considered for inclusion in what will now be our subsequent publication (title as yet undecided), a typographic frolic that will show off the metal types held at HM. The idea was sparked with the arrival of some new (to us) types this past summer, which led to a re-organization – and rediscovery – of all the metal type at the studio. As a showcase for our metal types, it will be something of a companion to Types/Paper/Print, and also underscore some of the challenges raised in that book around using metal types. Where Types/Paper/Print was purely focused in the types used for setting blocks of texts, the new book will instead be using the fonts on hand to create patterns, borders and any other designs that occur, incorporating a brief quote related in some manner to the face and/or its designer. Another difference between Types/Paper/Print (and most every previous HM title) and the new book will be an abundance of color on each page. A preliminary sketch for the Perpetua page is shown below.

The primary faces showcased (one per page, rectos only) will, in alphabetical order, be:  American Uncial, Bembo, Centaur, Goudy (combining Old Style, Bold, and Bible!), Hannibal (with Duensing), Monument, Morris Black Face, Optima, Perpetua, Rubens, Unciala, and Verona (a.k.a. Bologna). Supplemental faces that may be sprinkled around include Columbus, Garamont, Shadow, Huxley Vertical, Lombardic, Reiner Script, and de Roos. 

In addition to being a collection of types, the book will contain a unique collection of papers: so far we've assembled sufficient quantities of Van Gelder laid, two different laid sheets from Barcham Green, a W.A. Sanders cream laid from the 1950s, two different papers made by Reg Lissel, and kitikata. 

The book (40 pp, 7 x 10 inches) will be uniformly cased in (various) marbled papers over thin boards, like the regular edition copies of Types/Paper/Print. The edition will be 26 press-lettered copies. Price TBA. Publication is planned for early spring 2013, with a copy being displayed at the Codex Book Fair in February.

Looks Good on Paper

Assembling papers to be used in the (metal) type sample book. We hope to combine at least half a dozen. Yesterday we scored, from the stash of a friend, six packages of Barcham Green seconds from the 1970s. All of them are laid; prefer wove, but this is BG, so we won't complain. About 110 sheets of Bodleian 80 g, and 100 of Canterbury 120 g. Both of those are sufficient in size and quantity to save for their own projects. For the type book we have two small packages of Azure Laid 110 g, a total of 21 sheets. Enough for the planned edition. Interestingly, one of the packs is hot pressed, and has a lovely smooth surface.

Already on tap is a small package of Van Gelder Calligraphy found last year at the bottom of a drawer in a small art supply shop going out of business. We hope to have at least one Japanese sheet in the book; perhaps kitikata, or maybe some gampi made by Reg Lissel.

Stylish New Furniture at HM

Along with the cases of 1960s Czech type recently acquired, a box full of beautiful aluminum furniture, everything from 5 to 50 picas. Enough to completely purge our motley assortment of wood furniture.

Most of the Czech type has now been distributed and catalogued in the shop. Below is a detail from the previously mentioned broadside that Robert Reid and Ib Kristensen printed in 1965 to show off their new acquisitions. The Unciala and Monument are all at HM now, with the rest to follow.

Plans continue to bubble for a T/P/P companion, playing with our metal types but using the letters primarily to create shapes and patterns. (We do, however, hope to also incorporate some new pieces from HM's favorite poet; permission pending...)

Czech Out the New Type

 

Spent the past week playing with a cabinet of type that arrived last week, after a 50-year trek that took it from Vancouver to Montreal, then to the Northwest Territories, and finally back to Vancouver.

The cabinet, and some of the type in it (like Rubens, in several sizes), originated in Robert Reid's print shop in the 1950s. 

 

Ib Kristensen moved it, along with a bunch of other stuff, to McGill in the '60s, when he joined Bob there. During their tenures with the Redpath Press, Bob added a large collection of foundry types from Czechoslovakia. Not entirely by coincidence, we also have a Bob's copy of the catalogue (cover shown at top) of contemporary Czech types prepared by René Murat for the 1968 Atypi meeting in Prague, which is dominated by the designs of Oldrich Menhart. In our newly acquired trays are:

Monument

Unciala

and President

 

all in various sizes (including some useful titling sizes).

In 1965 Bob bought large fonts of a number of Czech types, and displayed them all on a single broadside titled "Alphabets In Honour Of Richard Pennington Struck In September 1965 From The Czechoslovak Types Recently Acquired For The Redpath Press" (a copy is currently available from Oak Knoll).

The arrival of this new type prompted us to finally dis' some old type that had been standing for ages, plus unwrap several titling sizes that haven't been used yet. Playing with all this metal also reinforced all that was said in the recent Types/Paper/Print about our preference for polymer when it comes to book work, but it also sparked the idea for a companion to T/P/P, showing all the metal faces held at HM, and combining our affinity for shaped settings with a collection of new poems by Harold Budd. Lots of colors this time, and different papers. A small edition, to keep it fun; probably just 26 press-lettered (A - Z) copies. Details to be shared as they are realized. 
 

June's Paste Papers #2: HM's First Triple Decker

The deluxe copies of Types/Paper/Print were issued over the past week. Each copy presents the entire book repeated three times on different papers: the Guarro laid used for the entire edition, plus Arches Wove (our go-to mouldmade) and Reg Lissel's HM Text (our go-to handmade). The idea was to let people compare how a type face looks, at a given size, on different papers. As William Everson said (and as HM quoted him in Elements in Correlation), "Critics of the book generally focus on the type and when people get into printing, the first thing they get into is type...But the paper is more fundamental, that is where the beauty begins, and in the end, that is all that beauty can come back to - the substance of the paper, the field on which the whole thing can act."
 
Claudia Cohen bound the deluxe copies with leather spines and fore-edges, and her own paste papers. She leftover sheets originally created for other projects, so there are at least a half dozen variants among the 10 deluxe copies (plus two AP, hers and mine). Below are six of the copies. The green paper was originally created for Gehenna Press's Zapf Civilite Disclosed (1995).

Should also note that Shinsuke's frontis engraving is signed & dated in the deluxe copies. 

We always enjoy having fun with the spine, especially the tail. This is what she came up with: perfect for a type sampler.

Most of the deluxe copies went to our regular booksellers, so if you're interested, contact one of them.

Third Press is No. 5

While out looking for an anniversary present, & distracted by the sign for a flea market, look what was found poking out from below the table of an absent seller:

Luckily the guy at the next table had a phone number, and a price was quickly agreed upon for this lovely quarto-sized "paper press" (as he called it). And just last week things were backing up in the studio for want of a third press like this. It's important to recognize & acknowledge when good luck comes along. So, that guy hobbling along Terminal Drive, trying not to drop a ton of iron on his toes, was HM, hauling the thing back to the car.

So #5 (as it is apparently named) has been scrubbed clean & will now help case up the last few copies of Types/Paper/Print. Which, by he way, is now out of print (and only one copy that we know of went to a Lovecraft fan!).

Some Don't Know Some Some or 4AD

One of HM's favorite people (a bookseller, no surprise) wrote this week after reading the brief foreword in our latest, Types/Paper/Print. Dear Soul was politely wondering if "some some" - used in the foreword with reference to a quantity of typefaces included in the sampling - was a printer's term he had not previously encountered, or maybe not?

We cannot be responsible for other people's lack of knowledge. Given his own regional locutions, he should have immediately recognized it for being contextually similar to the plural "all you all." The term that appears in the T/P/P foreword is part of a lexicology familiar to printers as far back as Gutenberg, all of them having included some variant of it in something they printed at one time or another. Our correspondent really was a wonderful friend & supporter for the longest time; too bad we'll no longer be at home for his future calls or notes.

More significantly, major gaps in our own knowledge were serendipitously filled this week, and will make valued  contributions to the printing of upcoming books. The English music label 4AD may be the single most important influence on HM, both graphically (at least in terms of providing inspiration) and curatorially - the concept of  wildly diverse output united only by the tastes & interests of the people presenting it. If you liked what you'd heard from the label, you'd probably like whatever else you found from the label. And its in-house design team, 23 Envelope, our eyes to type in design.

The vinyl was purged long ago (good riddance) but over the years, whenever a 4AD CD was found, it was added to the collection. Imagine the happy surprise to find not one but two new (to us) items this week, both of which have proven sublime listening, the glacial wall-of-sound fog that fills a room and lets your mind wander while your body repeats a series of tasks (i.e. prints with a handpress). Swallow was an iffy candidate, as the credits listed singing (not something we generally want to hear), but that singing was built into the musical wall, mortar in the bricks. The Hope Blister was blissfully vocal free, and bonus - it was a new incarnation for Ivo (Mr 4AD) Watts and the team behind This Mortal Coil (iconic, but less frequently heard at HM due to the predominance of vocals in the tracks). Both of the new discs are sonic representations of HM's aspirations, & highly recommended.

Met with Shinsuke Minegishi this week, got into detailed planning for his retrospective book. Prints & engraved blocks all over his apartment floor for a few hours. Ideas bubbling. Publication about a year from now...

Jason Dewinetz over at Greenboathouse Press (see link at right) sent copies of a label he'd recently set and printed, to adorn a box he'd constructed to contain (& hide) a collection of H'ephemera assembled over the past few years. His own unique drop box. The HM pair looks lovely; a bit of grafting & those serifs could be married up in an interesting way...

Without Jason's labels, we'd have no news to report. Still finishing the cases for Types/Paper/Print. About which: the deluxe issue is fully subscribed. Some copies will go to booksellers, so if you had your heart set on one, let us know & we can direct you to someone. Those copies are expected to come out of Claudia's studio mid-May. The current plan is for a binding very similar to Elements in Correlation: quarter leather, leather tips, paste paper over boards (probably different papers for each copy, culled from Claudia's stash of leftovers). 

One point about the deluxe copies that we've repeatedly forgotten to mention: the frontis wood engraving is signed by Shinsuke Minegishi. 

It's In The Mail

The first batch of Types/Paper/Print were sent out to their future lives today. So were a bunch of the 2012 New Books prospectus. About halfway through casing the regular copies of the book. The photo above shows the three different marbled patterns being used.

But the exciting news is that, within the week, Marsen Jules' label is issuing the long-planned collection of original music inspired by the works of Harold Budd. Very cool. Perfect for quiet moments printing, or reading, books.

New HM Prospectus Full of Lies

A new four-page prospectus for books to be published by HM in 2012 is being mailed out over the next week. Sadly, close reading reveals at least one major untruth: the lead article claims copies of the new Types/Paper/Print specimen book will include "one duplicate leaf printed on handmade paper." The presumption was that there would be sufficient extras from the copies printed on handmade paper (for the 10 deluxe copies of the book, which include the text in full on three different papers: Guarro laid, handmade, and Arches Wove). But there weren't, and so the plan was abandoned. Meanwhile, David Clifford was busy at Black Stone Press printing the prospectus, which was already out of date. C'est la vie. There were some extras, so some copies may sneak out with the extra leaf: the rare "duplicate leaf" variant.

The prospectus also fails to report that the three copies of the HM Drop Box, featured on the last page, are in fact all sold. They were, however, sold to booksellers, so they're not entirely out of play.

A PDF version of the prospectus is available from the home page of the HM site.

Types/Paper/Print: Cased Close

Getting into the thick of sewing copies of Types/Paper/Print and making the cases.

The sections were trimmed to 8 x 12 inches before sewing. The nipping presses become the bottleneck, and the solution is to complete each copy from sewing through casing in, rather than working through each stage of the process for the entire edition. The book is sewn and the spine pasted up; while it sets, the case is made. Then the book gets stuffed in the case, nipped and pressed while the next copy is prepared. After 30 minutes (the time it takes to sew a copy and make the case) between boards in the nipping press, the book is added to a small stack in a second press and left for about 24 hours. Boring, repetitive work. Even worse than printing. But at least something different for a while.

The endpapers are, alas, tipped on, a tactic we have always dismissed as something akin to a clip-on tie. But in this instance, for this book, it made sense, in part because it allowed us to make the slight adjustment in the press for the papers to be used in Claudia's deluxe copies (which most definitely will not be tipped on; hence the need for an increase to the space between what will be the doublure and the fly). For the front of the book we printed 48-pt Perpetua:

For the back, 60-pt De Roos semi-bold:

The cases are being covered in a variety of Payhembury hand-marbled papers. Labels printed in gold are set on to the spine and front board, as shown above.

Getting into the binding of Types/Paper/Print has reminded us of the book that was, if not exactly a model, at least an inspiration. It's a specimen book issued by the Alcuin Press in 1928, beautifully printed in various types on Batchelor's Kelmscott paper.

The book opens with a page set in 72-pt Cloister,

followed by a spread set in 36-pt, and then settles into a variety of faces in book sizes.

The text is an interesting precis of the fine press movement and the history of printing, concluding with a brief summary of the press's abilities in, and philosophy toward binding. In this instance, an elegant quarter-cloth case made with thin board.

Mr Milroy's Gate to a Wonder World

That's the title that Shinsuke Minegishi gave to the new wood engraving he made as a frontis for Types/Paper/Print. We'd suggested something that riffed on the form of a handpress, and he was particularly taken with the honeycomb pattern on the Ostrander Seymour's platen. Voila. Very cool. And a teasing precis to the retrospective of his printmaking that HM will be publishing.

The block (image approx. 2 x 4 inches) was printed by Shin on gampi. It will be mounted on a printed sheet, bracketed between the title and his name, facing the book's title page. Shin will sign below the print in each of the  ten deluxe copies.

Printing of the text pages was completed last weekend, and copies have been collated. We may have enough extras printed on the Arches and handmade to sneak a few into some of the regular edition (i.e. replacing the Guarro sheets).

Claudia Cohen will be binding the deluxe copies in April, so those copies should be shipping in early May. The regular copies will start coming out of the HM studio by the end of March. Meanwhile, a four-page prospectus of upcoming projects (including T/P/P) was being printed this week by David Clifford at Black Stone Press. Copies will be included with orders for the new book, and there will also be a general mailing.

The Long Run #5: Chill

Don't know what all the drama was about. Everything got done. Sheets all pressing between boards. But a new record for the studio: one sheet kept damp & printed upon over four consecutive days, more than 500 impressions. Just three more sheets to finish the book, then the two endsheets; on schedule to wrap things up within the next two weeks. 

The Long Run #4: Red All Over

Up & atom. 8 a.m. started the red run on the title page. Finished by 2 p.m. Spent an hour changing the lock-up and getting the two 36-pt alphabets positioned. Lots of putzing. Had to figure the finer points out on the bed, once everything was in place. Used Bembo and Jim Rimmer's Duensing.

Mixed up the gray (i.e. about 25% black, 75% transparent white). Underway with the second run around 4:30. Didn't think to check that the alphabets had actually been recited properly until just starting the Arches run (i.e. after 70 impressions on Guarro) - d'oh! Luckily all seems okey. Finished at 8:01 p.m., just in time for Simpsons #500 - wuhoo! A new studio record: 200 impressions in one day.

Last run tomorrow. Will have to see if the plan to print a large area of transparent gray over today's alphabets will work. Can be difficult to print large areas on damp paper - too much adhesion. Didn't spray the sheets after printing today, so by tomorrow they will have started to dry a bit. We'll see if it's enough, but not too much.

The Long Run #3: Back to Back

Backing up the sheet with the page 6 (foreword con't) and page 3 (title page). First run, black. Below is the imposition chart, printing schedule, and dummy of the title page - what we're shooting for.

Started at 8 a.m. The excellent gloom continued outside:

Except for an hour in the afternoon when the sun (which we hates) came out, but then the clouds & rain (which we likes) rolled back in. No particular dramas with the sheet. Had a bit of trouble with the ink when we got to the handmades, but figured it out. Finished at 6 p.m.

Also got the two majuscule alphabets ready for tomorrow. The galley below holds, at left, one of the two 60-pt alphabets that will be printed on the endsheets (below is De Roos); the middle (a few sorts sporting red) is 36-pt Duensing and far left (36-pt Bembo), both of which will be printed tomorrow on the title page's top right and bottom left quadrants, in opaque gray. After the red run. Long day.  

The Long Run #2: One Side Down

Started printing the sheet with the title page for Types/Paper/Print. Today the inner forme: start of the foreword, with the facing verso a blank. The stack of paper spent the night in a thick plastic bag, pressing. Shown above is what it looked like in the morning, all nicely relaxed. The Guarro gets printed first: 70 sheets for this run, allowing for spoilage (i.e. cock-ups) during the five runs; then the Arches (15) and HM Text (15). Below is one of the handmades, after printing. You can see the edges lifting as they already start to dry in just the few minutes out from under the heavy damp cloth covering the stack. Because the sheets have to remain damp for three more days of printing, each one was lightly sprayed after printing, then covered with a damp cloth. When the run was finished, the stack went back in the bag.

 

Began the day listening to Ryuichi Sakamoto's elegiac Discord, the four movements appropriately named for the stages endured during a day of printing: Grief, Anger, Prayer, and Salvation. Started printing at 9 a.m., finished at 7  p.m. (Couple of short breaks in there, but worked pretty steady.) Tomorrow we start backing up with the outer forme: first page of the foreword (the verso) and the black of the title page.

Couple of new additions to the HM handpress library arriving over the next few days. Will name names next week, after we finish this sheet (unless it finishes us first).

The Long Run

Halfway through printing the new type specimen book...interesting results with the three different papers so far: the Arches Wove wants a bit more ink than the Guarro laid, and the handmade wants less....10 - 10:30 a.m. today spent getting the paper ready for the book's most complicated run, with the title page: 5 different runs. Normally we dampen the paper in the late afternoon of the day before starting to print, but this latest batch of the HM Text wants extra time to fully relax, so we wet things in the morning. Here's the stack immediately after wetting & stacking. Into the plastic bag it went for six hours, then restacked & back into the bag, pressed, for the evening. Will post an image of printing the inner forme tomorrow. Saturday the fun starts, with the title page on the outer forme: the black run. A full two-page spread, 100 impressions, take 10-12 hours. Sunday will be two runs, red and blind (= 200 impressions), so things could get trippy after the 150 mark. Monday is gray. Never tried keeping paper (evenly) damp for this long. If the book appears with a plain black title page, you'll know we didn't pull it off.

p.s. the three HM Drop Boxes have been sold.