iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Our workspace tour video is now available on YouTube! youtu.be/YdxOL5cm-Ik This short video gives you a tour of the work space we've created over several cleaning work sessions. Meet the five casters (of the 46 in the collection) that we will be working on in the near term.

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Stewards Casting Diary 1.5: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

A short tour of the five main machines we will be working on.

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

To really give you a sense of the progress we have made at the foundry, I have posted a short tour of our work area on Patreon. We've got five machines on deck, and the space around them to do our work. www.patreon.com/posts/stewar...

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

We have 16 casters from ATF, and 3 are on a clear restoration track. This Saturday we cleared even more space around the machines so that we can actively work on them. I just sent a project management email this morning to establish our repair timelines. $3/month helps all this happen faster.

PS Machine No. 57: The American Type Founders Barth Caster, 72pt Mold, ATF Machine 149

PS Machine No. 71: The American Type Founders Barth Caster, 14pt Mold, ATF Machine 233

PS Machine No. 48: The American Type Founders Giant Pivotal

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Meanwhile...Letterpress @meanwhilelttrpress.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

We agree with every single one of these!!

Posters that read Trans Kids Are… Loved, Real, Slay!, A Vibe, strong, complex, worthy, cool!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 01/04/2025

Dropped by @skeuomorphpress.org to check on @transbookhistory.bsky.social’s community print for Trans Day of Visibility & found it bustling, full of kids & families happily setting wood type & printing these incredible broadsides. If we founded Skeuomorph for anything it was for events like that

Letterpress printed sheets reading

TRANS KIDS ARE REAL
TRANS KIDS ARE SPECIAL
TRANS KIDS ARE LOVED

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Trans* Book History @transbookhistory.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Adding this to my very short list of things I’m most proud of during my graduate career. It was exactly what I needed during these difficult times and I could tell it was what they all needed too!

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Trans* Book History @transbookhistory.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

New acquisition inspired by @literaturegeek.bsky.social. I just couldn’t resist! Had to have it!

Brass belt buckle with image of a jobbing platter press and the dates 1882 /1982

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

We had a great work session on Saturday! Join us on Patreon and learn about all of the progress we have made preserving and restoring historic typographic machinery, including some of the last remaining machines from the American Type Founders. www.patreon.com/posts/forwar...

patreon.com

Forward! | The Printing Stewards

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

My non-profit, @printingstewards.bsky.social , had another work session on Saturday. Join our Patreon and learn how we are saving historic typographic machines. www.patreon.com/posts/forwar...

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Forward! | The Printing Stewards

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Farran Smith Nehme 🇱🇧 @selfstyledsiren.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

This suggests to me that the insert was produced by some other entity that makes deals for their stuff to be included in newspapers? I can't wait for the part where we find out what the hell happened. bsky.app/profile/elec...

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Leor Galil @imleor.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

This is the end result of the Sun-Times gutting its arts and entertainment staff through layoffs and attrition

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Hari Kunzru @harikunzru.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Trying to get my head round how this could make it to print. Many warning signs for all of us

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

This is exactly what I mean when I say that it is impossible to reduce friction, only to move it around. The text-making-up machine dropped the friction of "research" to zero, but every single person downstream of that "research" who has to act upon it now shoulders a double workload.

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Jason Weidemann @fiveoclockbot.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

I just feel an overwhelming sense of sadness this morning over this? There are thousands of struggling writers out there who could write a brilliant summer reads feature and should be paid to do so. Pay humans to do things for fuck's sake.

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Farran Smith Nehme 🇱🇧 @selfstyledsiren.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Funnily enough, I was just talking to someone who is researching his book in the library. We agreed that one day, AI might trash-ify the internet to the point that anyone doing any research will be back at the library, leafing through paper books like the good lord intended.

Robert Preston flirts with a reluctant Shirley Jones over a dictionary in the River City Library, in 1962's THE MUSIC MAN

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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 20/05/2025

"Honey, could you give this a once-over before we print it with our name on it?" me (I'm Honey), approx. 20 seconds later: "That first book doesn't exist. You want me to read the rest, or is it time to just trash the whole thing?"

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

I spoke to the person who AI-generated the Chicago Sun-Times reading list. Says he's very embarrassed. This was part of a generic package inserted into newspapers and other publications, so likely to run elsewhere. He didn't know it'd be in Chicago Sun-Times www.404media.co/chicago-sun-...

404media.co

Chicago Sun-Times Prints AI-Generated Summer Reading List With Books That Don't Exist

"I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses," the writer said. "I'm completely embarrassed."

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

The machines are coming alive! Here is the first casting diary. Hopefully one of many. Spoiler, it did not kill me. But, I think most of our videos could go under this title. In this video we cast 144pt type! The largest in the world! And we learn what needs to be fixed. youtu.be/KAv3mX0CLRA

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Stewards Casting Diary One

YouTube video by The Printing Stewards

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

youtu.be

Stewards Casting Diary One

YouTube video by The Printing Stewards

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Glenn Fleishman @glennf.com · 07/05/2025

Please join me tomorrow in watching novelist, colleague, friend, and now fellow Jeopardy! player @dmoren.com on his first of ??? games! Check your local listings!

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Val Lucas - Bowerbox Press @bowerbox.com · 01/05/2025

The last poster wall iteration for a while- students need all the press time for their finals. Grab a poster if you need one for a May Day march and resist this rights-snatching bullshit that's going on. #letterpress

Wall of posters printed in red, blue, and black

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Val Lucas - Bowerbox Press @bowerbox.com · 03/05/2025

Today's nerd purchase (with bonus cat foot): Nineteenth Century American Designers & Engravers of Type, a collection of biographical essays from the Inland Printer. #letterpress #typefounding

A hand holds up a copy of a book titled Nineteenth Century American Designers & Engravers of Type, and a grey cat foot peeks into the frame under the book

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Val Lucas - Bowerbox Press @bowerbox.com · 06/05/2025

Scoring some new morel mushroom cards on the trusty C&P today. #letterpress

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

A student confessed that they produced an essay draft with AI, but that they had intended to revise it later so that it would "sound like" them, and therefore they intended to do right. I feel as though I have failed this person so so utterly. What a work "sounds like" has no bearing on its value.

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Letterpress, vinyl records, film photography, cassettes… everything is collapsing at once? I’ve written an essay attempting to capture the crisis in one framework.

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

"Our entire system for preserving cultural artifacts (museums, scholarship, libraries, etc) has grown up WITHIN the Industrial Age. We need a new perspective that can better describe the problem we are facing so that a proper solution can be imagined." www.patreon.com/posts/five-l...

patreon.com

Five Levels of Preservation: An Approach to Preserving Artistic Systems | The Printing Stewards

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Carley @thepresswoman.com · 03/05/2025

Back in Feb, @ryancordell.org shared this incredible woodcut from @skeuomorphpress.org collection. He shared the original illustrator file for all! I was so inspired by this woodcut, I wanted to clean it up and redistribute it to the public 🧵 1/2 #printsky #academicsky #typophile

A digitally drawn recreation of a woodcut image. A printing press is in the center with clouds and a sunrise behind it, with a banner above that says, “the tyrants foe, the people’s friend”

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Metal type has a body which supports the face. The face is driven into a brass matrix which sits as a die at the head of a body mold. This allows the castor to adjust the width of the body, and the position of the face on the body. A "kern" or overhang is one consequence of this design.

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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 01/05/2025

Em dashes, of course, were named in honor of Emily Dickinson, because she used so many of them.

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Glenn Fleishman @glennf.com · 01/05/2025

This caused a significant problem for…Garry Trudeau. youtu.be/NkiXxeF6aho?... I also explain (with Trudeau’s help) in a chapter in my upcoming book, How Comics Are Made—in your local and online bookstore in June, worldwide!

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The Week In Doonesbury That Wasn’t – May 7, 1973

YouTube video by Glenn Fleishman

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

"Kerning" is not a synonym for letter spacing. A "kern" is when a stroke of a character physically protrudes beyond the body of a piece of type. Like the foot of a swash capital K. That kern then rests on the beard or shoulder of the body of the type next to it. This ALLOWS tighter spacing.

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Glenn Fleishman @glennf.com · 30/04/2025

You can still pre-order a copy of Six Centuries of Type & Printing, my brisk yet thorough look at the history of putting ink on paper, and get its stretch bonuses: use Kickstarter’s Late Pledges feature! www.kickstarter.com/projects/gle... Ships in June. Spoiler: covers more than 1,000 years!

kickstarter.com

Six Centuries of Type & Printing: New Edition

Help create an affordably priced version of this book that spans 600 years of the history of typography, type casting, and printing

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Printing in America starts in 1639 with Elizabeth Glover in Cambridge, Mass. By 1727 Ben Franklin observed: "[T]here was no letter-founder in America". In 1770, Franklin's competitor Christopher Sower II imported type casting equipment. Franklin established his grandson as a typefounder in 1786.

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

I've posted a new essay on the Patreon. "The Life Cycle of Type". Come join us and support the work we are doing.

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Do you want to buy metal type in North America but don't know where to go? One simple service that we provide is: americantype.org We've assembled a complete catalogue of the type available to be cast by the five major North American type foundries, along with a brief essay on buying type.

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The Printing Stewards @printingstewards.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

The American Type Founders Giant Pivotal is the only machine in the world that can cast up to 144pt metal type. ATF used this unique machine to cast large logos for elite clients like Sears, the YMCA, and several World's Fairs. We're working to restore it to full operation.

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Typofonderie: fonts & typography @typofonderie.com · 14/04/2025

Read about Romain du Roi. The first bespoke typeface of history created for Louis XIV, which marks the beginnings of a new typography era. ➽ typofonderie.com/gazette/le-r... By Michel Wlassikoff, the eminent French historian of graphic and type history. 1/2

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G @sunshineinsuburbia.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

the futura typeface is so pretty

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Yep! Type Foundry @yeptype.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

Unifora: uppercase set

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sara linsley @sara.pizza · 13/04/2025

if any trans folks in NYC are looking for a room in bushwick ASAP, please let me know! shares appreciated!

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@DesignOneThing @designonething.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

Happy birthday Oswald Bruce Cooper. The homespun type designer, letterer, graphic designer, and educator, famous for co-founding the successful Midwest firm Bertsch & Cooper and designing the Cooper series of typefaces, was born today in 1879. #CooperBlack

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Glenn Fleishman @glennf.com · 10/04/2025

75% there and one week to go! www.kickstarter.com/projects/gle...

Six Centuries book at left in green cloth and red endpapers at right, splayed open

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 13/04/2025

My cartoon for this week's @newscientist.com

A Caroll diagram consisting of four rectangles arranged in a square.
The Y axis is labelled MOVE and split into FAST and SLOW.
The X axis is labelled THINGS and split into BREAK and FIX

Top left image: (Move Fast and Break Things) Tech Bro
Bottom left image: (Move slow and break things) Runaway Steamroller
Top right image: (Move fast and fix things) Emergency Plumber
Bottom left image: (Move slow and fix things) Grandpa with a toolbox

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