Letterpress Workshops
The workshops that we run at Letterpress Design have been developed to support all levels of letterpress printer. With over 25 years of letterpress print experience we can offer workshops for the beginner through to the more experienced printer who wants to try something new.
We appreciate that being based on the Isle of Wight doesn’t make getting to us an easy proposition but it’s a beautiful place to visit as well as doing some printing. If you are already visiting the Island, please give us a call or drop us a line to see if we can accomodate your dates, more info on the type of courses will follow. If you’d just like to come over to the Island and attend one of our day courses, normally on a weekend as a foot passenger on the ferry, we’re happy to come and collect you from either the Cowes or Fishbourne Ferry and drop you off again at the end.
Presses available for workshops
As a fully functioning letterpress studio we have a lage range of letterpress machinery. Because of this we can offer starter courses on one of our smaller Adana 8×5 or Adana QH Quarto presses, or even more advanced… you can hand set your own type from our selection of metal and wood type or you can supply your own design and we can make up a photopolymer plate ready for you to print with on the day.
If you would like to print something larger we have a Chandler & Price treadle press that can print a good A4 size, as well as a smaller Jardine treadle for things a little smaller. If you would like to play with posters we have the very lovely Farley SP25CP with a 24 x 36 inch bed size and a large amount of wood type and blocks that you can use to produce your own designs.
As a bonus we also carry 2 marshall table top foilers, very similar with their clam shell action we can also teach you how to foil. If you have a design for this we’ll need it a week in advance so that we can get your plate made.
And for those who are really serious, we can show you how to use the Heidelberg Platens, we have 3 of these, one with a foiling attachment for foiling up to A4 and an 18×13 for those A3 size prints, workshops on these will be by special arrangement and you will need to have had some substantial printing experience to be able to use them.
Where we are and how to get to us.
We are based on the very beautiful isle of Wight, but please don’t let that put you off. We are based in Wootton Bridge on the river and not that far away from 2 of the main ferry terminals. Over the river is the Fishbourne terminal where you can catch a ferry from Portsmouth and 40 mins later you’re here and up the road is the main Cowes Red Funnel Terminal where you can catch a ferry from Southampton, 1 hour sailing. If you choose to you can bring your car on either of these ferries and we can help you see if there are any discounts available for you if you choose to do this. Wightlink, the Fishbourne route, accept Tesco clubcard vouchers, a very cost affective way of travelling.
If you would like to come as a foot passenger to either the East Cowes terminal or Fishbourne, we are more than happy to come and pick you up and make sure you get back there OK after your workshop.
Types of Workshops
All of our Letterpress workshops will be tailored to fit around you and what you want to learn. We are splitting them into half day courses, run in an afternoon from 1pm to 4pm, a full 3 hours of inky loveliness and day courses to be run on a Saturday or a Sunday by prior arrangement. We are not popping set dates in the diary because of our location.
All workshops will start with a health and safety talk and an explanation of all of the presses, unless you’ve done a workshop with us before, you should also leave with some goodies, not just your prints, of your day with us.
All of the details of the workshops are over on our store pages, along with all the small print. If you see something you fancy, get in touch with us to confirm dates and then purchse your workshop through the store to confirm your booking. We’ll send you an email with all of the details on too.