Special Three-day Lettering and Type Intensive

From Ruling Pens to Wood Type: A Special Three-day Lettering and Type Intensive
with Luca Barcellona, Lucio Passerini and Paul Shaw
at the Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione
Wednesday through Friday 25–27 July

Ornate wood type from Pirola at the Tipoteca

Alta Price and Paul Shaw are opening the workshop portion of their Legacy of Letters 2012 tour to those with tight schedules and other constraints who would otherwise be unable to join us by structuring the workshop so that it can be taken separately from the rest of the tour.

On Day 1, participants will have the opportunity to explore non-traditional tools (brushes, markers, ruling pens, litho/cola pens, etc.) to create expressive, contemporary, and experimental calligraphy with calligraphic maestro Luca Barcellona and letter designer Paul Shaw.

Days 2 and 3 will focus on type, as Milanese master printer Lucio Passerini shows participants how to set type with the composing stick and then introduces printing with the Vandercook proof press. Participants will be able to design their own broadsides or ephemera using the renowned wood type collection of the Tipoteca as well as Monotype and foundry type. They will be encouraged to integrate type with written or the hand-drawn letters learned previously in the session with Luca Barcellona and Paul Shaw.

The workshop will take place at the Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione in Cornuda, Italy, a small town in the Veneto. The Tipoteca, established in 1995 (and opened to the public in 2002) is a museum of printing and type. It has an outstanding collection of printing presses, Linotype and Monotype casting machines, pantographs, type casters, papercutters and other equipment along with cases of foundry type, drawers of wood type, and a library of type specimen books and printing trade literature. Much of the type and the literature is Italian and thus will be unfamiliar to those with experience in typography and letterpress printing.

Registration: $1100 (includes three-day workshop, basic art supplies, four nights’ hotel accommodation, all breakfasts, and one celebratory group dinner with all Legacy of Letters participants and instructors). Travel to and from Cornuda, home of the Tipoteca, is not included, although we can provide directions and travel suggestions for participants coming from elsewhere in Italy, Europe or abroad.

Participants are asked to arrive the evening of Tuesday, 24 July (this night before the workshop begins is included in workshop price) and depart the morning of Saturday, 28 July.

To sign up (or for more information) email Paul Shaw at paulshaw@nyc.rr.com.Space is limited to 7 people. Registration ends June 15.