Book Preview: Impressive: Printmaking, Letterpress and Graphic Design

Book description from gestalten.com:

Today’s graphic designers, illustrators, and typographers are rediscovering old printing techniques and handcrafts. They are inspired by passion for the unique; the feel of different papers, press cuts, and embossing; the brilliance of printing inks; and the originality of book binding techniques. The book Impressive presents the results of this passion.

Today’s fascination with old-fashioned printing presses and techniques started with individual designers and smaller collectives that created one-of-a-kind printed material by hand for special occasions, such as weddings or birthdays. Impressive features these artists and their personal work as well as a broad range of business cards, invitations, stationery, and publications that are designed and produced in a way that is both nostalgic and contemporary. Historical styles – from the Victorian grandeur of floral elements and adornments to the aesthetics of classical modernism – are used and referenced as well as combined and reinterpreted in unusual ways. Traditional and more exotic techniques such as silk-screen printing, stamping, woodcut, or linocut are used. What counts is doing it yourself.

Impressive investigates the interplay between traditional handiwork and current trends in graphic design. The work collected in this book shows how relevant and exciting the modern use of traditional design forms can be and how much it can inspire the visuality of the future.

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