TinkerCAD is an intuitively designed and effective means of making a 3D print from a 2D image, and thus ideal for creating letterpress blocks. With that said, there is still a process of prepping an image to be 3D printed using Illustrator, and often Photoshop. If you are new to...
In Spring of 2020, I joined the team of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students in the Letterpress Goes 3D project. This multi-faceted project set out with the goal of recreating historical image blocks, moveable type, and printing plates as well as original material creations of digital fonts and images for...
Introduction In order to share the activity of the Letterpress Goes 3D, or LG3D, we first must share the definition and potential of “letterpress.” Letterpress was the dominant printing technology from the 16th century to the early 20th century, and continues to be used today for educational, historical, and artisanal...
In this post, we’ll be going over how you can create wooden letterpress blocks of a digital font of your choosing. Each block will correspond to an individual letter which can be used to create, or “compose,” lines of type for letterpress printing. Blocks of a particular type (e.g. “A,”...
The process to prepare a historical image for laser cutting is slightly more complex and time-intensive than preparing a born-digital image because you will likely have to do some restoration work. If you are new to Photoshop in particular, you will likely have a much easier time creating a laser...
This tutorial will show you how to convert a digital image into a vector image that can then be laser cut to create a wooden letterpress block for printing. Essentially, this guide will take you from digital image to woodcut! Before you begin, it is important to ensure that the...
