Fox Ash Press
:David Jury is proprietor of the Fox Ash Press, designing and letterpress printing limited edition books from his studio. These books are in international collections including the Tate Gallery, Yale Centre for British Art, the British Library’s Special Collections, The Bodleian Library and the Nationale Bibliotheek van Nederland.
A snippet taken from an article written for Baseline (edited by Hans Dieter Reichert) in 2007 to promote the first Codex book fair and symposium in Berkeley, California, by Peter Koch.
Why would a typographer also want to be a printer? In practice, the typographer wants the workmanship of the printer to be good, but, of course, it is the printer who decides whether it will be good or not. Inevitably, all jobs are much the same to the commercial printer. A business runs more efficiently, and profitably, if each job has a similar outcome. Nothing better illustrates the advantage of being your own printer, both creatively and practically. It provides, control – independence and freedom – from the vagaries of other people’s priorities. However, there is no point getting involved with printing unless the experience of using it is integral to the design process.
I bought my Vandercook proofing press in 1996 for £250. It is one of the newer models (circa 1950s); mid-sized – able to accommodate A2 sheets – and is fitted with power-driven inking rollers. This kind of uncomplicated hand press is ideal for anyone unfamiliar with letterpress because the type can be placed directly on to the flat horizontal bed, and, at the turn of a handle, the inked rollers glide over the face of the type followed by the cylinder with the sheet of paper attached.
Composing type by hand is undeniably slower than ‘copying’ and ‘pasting’ via a keyboard. Real objects have to be moved around, an often delicate and risky activity, and so modifications are not made before all possible ramifications have been considered. The need to think before acting is demanding and slows down the design process but makes letterpress an intensely cerebral activity – something not often commented on. There is the distinct possibility that such demands will encourage the use of predictable solutions, but why would a letterpress printer, particularly one aiming solely to please himself, do that?
