Spring / Summer 2011
Autumn / Winter 2011

Letterpress classes
An introduction to Letterpress:
An intense two-day course, designed to allow art directors, artists, graphic designers, print makers & students to work closely with letterpress materials
& printing equipment.

The resurgence of letterpress over the last decade has triggered a passionate respect for the craft & reinforced its position in the visual arts. Letterpress has identified itself as an antidote to the immediate & often dispensable nature of modern technology.

There are very few letterpress facilities remaining in the British Isles & even fewer experts to instruct.

The ‘Introduction to Letterpress’ two-day workshop offers its participants a unique opportunity to develop  an understanding of typography & design through the use of the traditional materials & processes used in letterpress.

The workshop is typographically driven — you will be introduced to the fundamental procedures of metal type setting & wood letter composition & through a simple but expressive project: begin to explore the possibilities of letterpress techniques & visual ideas.

Each workshop will produce a bespoke two-colour limited edition print of the work undertaken.

The workshop is the responsibility of Kelvyn Laurence Smith. Mr Smith has been consumed with typography and letterpress for the last 20 years. He has taught extensively across the UK. There are no other letterpress courses that offer the sensibility of a typographer & graphic designer as captain.

Loosely educated as an undergraduate at Norwich School of Art; Mr Smith began what he terms as his ‘Professional Apprenticeship’ with Maestro Letterpress Typographer Alan Kitching (RDI),
at ‘The Typography Workshop’, Clerkenwell, London. There he worked as a specialist letterpress designer with specific attention to detail in hand-set typographic composition, structural layout & press work.

He began visiting Art Schools and Universities teaching graphic design & typography at Middlesex; Colchester; Brighton; Kent; Westminster; London College of Printing; Northumbria & London Metropolitan.

After many fruitful years Mr Smith has conceded all teaching positions to concentrate on new ventures in research, publishing & professional practice — he is now solely dedicated to his new venture ‘Smith’s Rules’.