The brief
In one of our postgraduate design modules, we were tasked with designing and developing some kind of memorabilia artefact to commemorate a movement or a design that inspired us.
Being a lover of all things typographic and hand-crafted, I believed there was no greater movement I could have developed memorabilia for than the Gutenberg Revolution.
We created our own brief for this project, allowing us the freedom to set our own guidelines, all the while remaining accountable to them as well.
I knew starting off that I wanted to create something that someone with a keen interest in typographic design movements would appreciate and want to read further on; as well as someone who wouldn't mind something awesome hanging up in their office.
But before designing anything, a little research was required.
Visual inspiration
Once I defined the history itself (which formed the bottom part of the poster design), I needed to define what my design might look like, and therefore, inspired by.
I wanted the artefact to be printed using a press-transfer method, not unlike the Gutenberg Press itself. Within my skillset and artistic inclination, I decided it would be cut and printed from linoleum onto cartridge paper.
I then developed a visual moodboard to guide my design through contextual cues and historical context.
In the top left moving downwards, you can see what italics, serif and blackletter typefaces looked like during that era.
In the centre, the top and middle images are from the Gutenberg Bible, showing the type layouts and ornamentation that occasionally supplemented the text.
In the bottom centre and bottom right, you can see what some modern versions of these type blocks look like.
And finally, I included some illustration elements that were occasionally used in this method of printing; to draw inspiration from the visual style the press created, as well as to inform design decisions that could help to break the type in a more modern way.
Preliminary designs
My initial design process was the most stressful aspect of this project, going through multiple variations within their own challenges along the way.
At first I created a double-column design, featuring a summary of the background and context that I defined in the personal brief for myself.
The problem that arose here, was that as soon as I started trying to transfer the image onto my lino, I realised I would never be able to achieve the accuracy this design would require. With the help of laser a cutting machine, maybe, but not my lino-cutting tools. I hit a rather large wall.
I had passed a point of being able to reconceptualise the entire project, doing different research and redesigning a completely different commemorative artwork. There just wasn't enough time. I had to find a way to make what I had work.
This meant that I couldn't include all the information I had originally planned to cut, because my content would have to be large enough to fit on my linoleum in order to hand-cut.
I returned to the drawing board, but after a few failed attempts at larger type, and even a landscape option, I settled on a hybrid solution. This can be seen on the far right of the images below.
Relief carved into linoleum
Printed on cartridge paper
Final hybrid solution
Final design development
The plan was thus:
The main aesthetic element of the artefact would be designed by hand, aided by typographic and illustrative puzzle pieces, and printed on its own sheet of cartridge paper.
This image would then be transferred onto linoleum board before being relief-cut by hand.
A second standard cartridge paper sheet was printed with the body copy, which was the entirety of my research done into the Gutenberg Revolution itself. I chose to include all the information, because a fuller body of text works better to represent the print style aesthetically. It also allowed the opportunity to use a two-column layout, helped to break the full design aesthetic, and created hierarchy with the dominant poster design.
I then transferred the relief from the linoleum carving onto the open space on the sheet of copy, resulting in a hybrid product of both past and present mass-consumption printing methods.
Linoleum carving and printing process
The carving and printing process challenged me at first. It had been years since I had last done something like this, which created unique concoction of anxiety and excitement.
The plan was sound, and the design was carveable, but it took far more time than I had anticipated to have a finished product at the end of the day.
My wrist still has some PTSD from those long nights of carving in front of a good season or two of something; and I recall the finger I used to apply pressure to my carving tools only returned to full strength months later.
The entire experience was daunting, but it was exciting and rewarding. And now I have something to commemorate the Revolution that gave us moveable type and set the stage for modern graphic design.
And as a bonus, I finally had one of my own prints hanging in my office.
