Two art professors have unplugged from the fast-paced world of computer-based graphic design and stepped back in time through the creation of the Raven Press at the University of Delaware. A letterpress studio facility on the ground floor of Recitation Hall is stocked with both lead and wood letters, colorful inks and a measure of historical craft that enriches what can be accomplished with even the best of modern software.

The professors have purchased two Vandercook proofing presses and two Chandler & Price job presses and are looking for an Albion or iron hand press to round out the printing options.

"I'm so busy and this is so slowww," Ray Nichols, professor of visual communications, says of the long and intricate process of setting type by hand, drawing out the last word for effect. "It's like going on vacation every time I enter that room. Everything goes at a different speed. There is a mesmerizing softness to its hardness."

"Like printmaking, this is an art form," Bill Deering, assistant professor of visual communications, adds.

Having spent the better part of two decades filling their heads with the latest in computer technologies to keep pace with their field, neither suspected they would develop a love affair with the bygone, hands-on world of the letterpress when they took a group of UD visual communications students on a Study Abroad program to London three summers ago.

"London is a really hot and creative area for cutting edge commercial art, and we got this idea during planning for the Study Abroad trip," Nichols said. "Somewhere in the backs of our minds, we knew we wanted to focus part of the trip on type. We wanted the students to come back with the sense words have weight. We wanted words to have mass, strength, power, but we had a tough time figuring out exactly what would accomplish that."

"Students have lost close contact with typography," Deering said. "Now, they don't make words; they type them on a screen and spit them out a laser printer."

As it turns out, the design studio of Vince Frost, who is scheduled to do a workshop with UD's visual communications program during the spring semester, was using wood type in creative ways in some of its work. On top of that, they met--by sheer happenstance--Alan Kitching, who teaches letterpress at the Royal College of Art.

Deering asked Kitching if he could present a workshop on letterpress to UD students at the Royal College during the following summer's Study Abroad trip, and he agreed. The workshop was a huge hit with the students.

"Even though we had been to really cool, leading edge graphic design agencies and studios, the students almost unanimously picked the old style letterpress workshop as their favorite event of the trip," Nichols says.

Subsequently, the professors uncovered more sites of typographical interest in London, including the St. Bride's Printing Library, the British Library section on the history of the book and The Type Museum.

A monetary donation to The Type Museum brought out the red carpet, and this summer, students were able to handle hand-printed books dating from the 16th century and to witness the first public demonstration in 150 years of the renaissance craft of sandcasting lead type.

They also had an opportunity to go behind the scenes at St. Bride's and hold the original metal type punches made by William Caslon in the early 18th century. (Go to the pull-down font list on your computer and you will likely find the Caslon typeface.)

Inspired, Nichols went on a quest to find the gravesite of an early 20th-century font designer Eric Gill, and he did.

"We came to realize that the students need this experience," Nichols said. "But, when we started, we didn't know much about it, and we didn't know anyone who did letterpress."

Deering says they went online and began making contacts. What they found was a thriving "cottage industry" in hand printing and several universities and schools that still operate letterpress shops, among them Yale University, the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., Washington College in Chestertown, Md., and the Gunston Day School in Centreville, Md.

The name Raven Press was selected with a reference to the many meals Deering and Nichols eat at the Deer Park Tavern in Newark and to the black ink used in much letterpress printing. A gift of a raven from Susan Brynteson, May Morris Director of Libraries at the University, sealed the name. A space was cleared in Recitation Hall as the professors began to seek out presses and type.

"We missed a press sale during our 2002 Study Abroad trip but called and asked if they had anything left over that they wanted to give away," Deering said. "They did, so we rented a trailer and went to New Haven, Conn."

"In addition to Raven Press' first Chandler & Price, they threw a lot of stuff in the trailer," Nichols added. "We didn't have the foggiest idea what it was. They said we'd learn, and we have been."

The professors have purchased two Vandercook proofing presses and a second Chandler & Price job press. "Now we are looking for an Albion or an iron hand to round out the printing options," Deering said. "We've gotten to the point where we are worrying about preserving a lot of this kind of stuff. School and commercial printing presses are abandoning the process which is being picked up by small fine book presses, but a lot of the equipment is simply being scrapped."

The professors have been scanning online trading sites for type and have amassed 300 cases of type through trips to Washington, D.C., Ohio, Connecticut and New York City.

In addition to acquiring the necessary tools of the trade, they have made some key contacts, off campus and on. Both noted the work of Mike Kaylor, a master printer who operates letterpresses at both Washington College and Gunston Day, who has been an invaluable resource.

On campus, they have found support from the University of Delaware Library, the English and art conservation departments and the Center for American Material Culture Studies.

Bernard Herman, Edward and Elizabeth Goodman Professor of Art History and director of the Center for American Material Culture Studies, "helped us gain an appreciation for the historical record," Nichols said, adding, "I've been in advertising design and have lived in a very temporary world. Your work goes out in a magazine and then you move on to the next thing."

Herman wove the letterpress into a course last semester, assigning students to develop a timeline of important moments in printing history and then having them typeset and print their most surprising entries on a poster at the Raven Press.

"This is a very do-able craft and a very enjoyable craft," Deering said, "and the students have really been getting into it."

Deering said the UD Library, which has an impressive collection of letterpress materials and handmade books, has taken an interest, as has Mark Samuels Lasner, senior fellow in the University Library, and Martin Brückner, assistant professor of English at UD and a member of the Center for American Material Culture Studies.

"The notion of printing words on paper and having the word attached to that paper is exciting," Nichols said. "Being handmade, it has a quaintness, a painterly quality, more like an illustration than typography. It is also bringing us into book design to provide us with an outlet for the printing we will do. We also have the idea for printing 'poem cards' which we will distribute around campus. More poetry wouldn't hurt anything."

The professors have a number of ideas for Raven Press, considering workshops for students and faculty and staff and continued exhibits such as those last year that featured works from a United Nations typography show and also from the Royal College students of Kitching. "We are going to exhibit the Type Directors Club annual competition in March in Recitation Hall Gallery," Nichols said.

They also would like to have an opportunity to try their hands at University invitations and other printed materials, and perhaps work collaboratively with students in London or Centreville, printing part of a page here and sending it to them to complete.

"Letterpress printing is a very powerful tool," Deering said. "The printed materials just look rich. We're excited about this and other people are interested and excited, as well, to see future handiworks from Raven Press."

--Neil Thomas AS '76

Feeling out of sorts?

Several phrases are drawn from the world of typography, including "mind your p's and q's" and "out of sorts."

Typographers had to mind their p's and q's because the lower case versions of the letters look so much alike and are easy to confuse, particularly given that letters of type are backwards. Other examples of these 'demon' characters are n and u, b and d, 6 and 9, and zero and the capital letter O.

Sorts are the individual letters and figures kept in a case for use when handsetting type. So, when a typographer was "out of sorts," he found it difficult to move on.

London designer created Raven Press log

The Raven Press at the University of Delaware has a logo, thanks to the vision and thoughtfulness of the current visual communications program senior class.

Work on the logo began in London this past summer on a Study Abroad trip and was finalized on a lucky Friday, June 13. The visual communications United Kingdom trip is built around a variety of visits to creative advertising agencies, photographers, design-related museums and graphic design studios.

Each of the three years, the UD students have ended the first week with a Friday afternoon visit to world-renowned designer Alan Fletcher, a founding partner of Pentagram, one of the world's most influential design studios and author of several graphic design books. He is also a Hall of Fame member for a lifetime achievement of creative work in both the U.S. Art Directors Club of New York and Design and Art Direction, the London equivalent.

The students discreetly approached Fletcher with the project to design a logo for Raven Press as a present to the visual communications faculty in thanks for the Study Abroad experience, and he readily agreed.

The students kept the logo a secret until Tuesday, Sept. 23, when they unveiled it at a weekly class session attended by all 100 visual communications students. Ben Thoma, speaking for the senior class, presented the Alan Fletcher-designed logo to faculty members Raymond Nichols and Bill Deering, who have personally funded and run the newly established Raven Press.

The faculty members, clearly moved by the students' initiative and Fletcher's vision involved with the logo, said they could barely control their emotions in accepting the framed original drawing.