Six Years Of Letterpress

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I
n
2013 we conducted an
experiment

STEP 1 BUY AN ANTIQUE LETTERPRESS

STEP 2Create letterpress goods

STEP 3Make a fabulous living from it

Well it didn’t quite work out like that.

THIS IS THE STORY OF POP PRESS LETTERPRESS

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Six Years of Letterpress
2014
WE BUY DORIS!
garden workshop
arab crown
big love
press build
print process
2015
on tour
foxy kachette
kings cross
foxy brixton
landmarks
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Land marks
2016
Pop
Press shop
window shopping
bricks& mortar
Pop
Press HQ
shop& studio
work shops
note books
2017
bespoke prints
Gothic House
Notts Mela
2018
Love you Dad
Mini Xmas
creative workshop
happy whale
manc
print fair
mini nature
hull land
marks
repeat print
2019
disaster
new studio
tough times
full circle
BECOME LETTERPRESS PRINTERS
2014
WE BUY 'DORIS'

Buy and install a 1924 Arab Treadle press from Halifax.

Hastily erect a garden shed to house it. Learn how to make printing plates and letterpress products.

Name our press ‘Doris’. Pop Press is born!

garden
workshop

A PLACE IN THE SUN
not so fun in
winter
-10 deg
Our press would have fallen through the floorboards so a shed was the only option.

THE ARAB CROWN

14 St. James’s Street, Nottingham
We’d bought half a ton of obsolete machinery
All we had to do was learn how to use it.

WHAT CAN YOU MAKE WITH AN ANTIQUE LETTERPRESS

Traditional wood and metal type can be typeset to make prints and cards.

Traditional letterpress USING wood type blocks.

PUTTING THE
PIECES TOGETHER

KINDLY RE-ENGINEERED BY
PATRICK ROE OF ‘LOGAN PRESS’
Doris. The Arab Crown Folio letterpress.
Patrick Roe building an Arab letterpress
COST
£60 IN
1872
WEIGHT
915kg
MADE IN HALIFAX 1924
RELOCATED TO NOTTINGHAM 2013

LETTERPRESS
PRINT PROCESS

PROJECT

CHINESE NEW YEAR OF THE HORSE LIMITED EDITION CARDS

‍

CLIENT

CHUNG TYSON ARCHITECTS

‍

MAKING STATIONERY

LETTERPRESS PRINTING
WITH PHOTOPOLYMER PLATES

1
PRINT A NEGATIVE

We used a cheap HP inkjet printer to print dense blacks

2
EXPOSE PHOTOPOLYMER

A UV exposure unit bought from Ebay did the job

3
MIX INK

Create exact colours using CMYK Pantone swatches

4
TREADLE THE PRESS

Ink up the rollers. Engage the impression lever & make beautiful prints!

plate printing advantages

Combining photopolymer plates and a letterpress allows artists to make their illustrations into beautiful relief prints.

Chinese New Year card by Pop Press
Create stories with
Landmark Coasters
2015
Pop Press
on tour

Spurred on by positive comments, we hit the print fair circuit.

Every print fair we did in a new city was an opportunity to create a set of letterpress landmarks and meet talented makers up and down the country.

Another crafty fox
Another London trip

Nestled under the railway on Old Street, Shoreditch is
KACHETTE
September 27, 2015

House of Illustration

Granary Square, Kings Cross, London
A COOLER CHRISTMAS
We loved doing the House of Illustration print fair at the spectacular venue of Granary Square, Kings Cross, London.
COOL & TRENDY VIBES!

Crafty Fox

at the Dogstar, Brixton
Pop Press' stall at the Dogstar in Brixton
April 26 2015

‍

LANDMARK COASTERS
DESIGN PROCESS

PROJECT

CREATING OUR LETTERPRESS PRINTED LANDMARK COASTER SETS

‍

PROJECT

LIVERPPOOL PRINT FAIR AT THE BLUECOAT GALLERY

‍

DESIGN PROCESS

LANDMARK COASTERS

1
CHOOSE LANDMARKS

RESEARCH TO FIND THE COOLEST BUILDINGS AND LANDMARKS TO REPRESENT THE CITY

2
SKETCH SCENES

FIND THE BEST ANGLE AND DREAM UP SCENARIOS THAT TELL INTERESTING VISUAL STORIES

3
FUSE TYPOGRAPHY

APPLY THE KEY INGREDIENTS OF THE STYLE – CREATIVE TYPOGRAPHY AND MESSAGING

4
PHOTOSHOP ARTWORK

WE USE PHOTOSHOP TO TURN SKETCHES INTO CRISP B&W ARTWORK, READY FOR THE NEGATIVE PRINTING PROCESS

LANDMARK LETTERPRESS COASTER SETS

 Each print fair in a new city was an opportunity to create a set of letterpress landmarks, curated to tell the story of the city.

Letterpress coaster sets by Pop Press
Hit the high street
2016
Honey! I’ve
bought a shop

Stock lovely things we’d have in our own home.

POP PRESS

Come in and have a browse
Beautifully designed prints and objects jostled for attention amongst industrial printing equipment.

POP PRESS LETTERPRESS

14 St. James’s Street, Nottingham
PUTTING OUR STAMP
ON THE HIGH STREET
Built in 1877
originally part of
The Malt Cross Music Hall
the Pop Press bricks & mortar shop opened for business in May 2016.

THE POP PRESS

SHOP & STUDIO
at St. James's St, Nottingham

THE NEW POP PRESS HQ

NOT JUST A SHOP

We also had 2 floors of studio space
It was like
a second home
With a large open plan studio on the first floor and large attic space, the Pop Press studio was a home for our product production and printmaking experiments.

LEARNING HOW
TO LETTERPRESS

OUR CUSTOMERS WANTED TO EXPERIENCE LETTERPRESS FOR THEMSELVES AND THE POP PRESS SHOP AND STUDIO PROVIDED THE PERFECT VENUE
The Pop Press shop – ready for a workshop
A metal type print saying Deck the Halls With Bottles of Bolli!
Two customers inside the Pop Press shop participating in a letterpress workshop
2
HRS
OF
INKY
FUN
WORKSHOPS
AT THE POP PRESS STUDIO

NOTEBOOKS

Satisfied Clients:
  • Form SE15
  • Holly Tucker
  • Helen B (Belguim)
  • Gravel Pit
  • Form Hull
Talk Shop
2017
Workshops &
commissions

Host workshops for one to hundreds of people. Make some baby and wedding commissions.

Bespoke prints

Andrew's man cave. A bespoke print by pop Press
...we would turn their ideas into something that really made an lasting impression.

GOTHIC HOUSE

LETTERPRESS COASTER SET
Gothic House, Nottingham. A set of letterpress coasters by Pop Press
This was our first corporate commission which became a new add on to our business offering.

NOTTINGHAM MELA 2017

Mela! Melee more like!
Nottingham Mela graphic promoting Pop Press.
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE
We were inundated with people wanting a go at letterpress and linocut printing. We had to close up early as we hadn’t enough equipment or materials to keep up with demand!
Build the brand
2018
Designer, Seller
Maker

Illustrator, designer, printmaker, bookbinder, manufacturer, salesperson. We wore many hats as self-employed creative business owners.

The beauty of this meant that we could write our own briefs, creating products and selling them.

These are some or our favourite projects...

What do you buy for the dad who has everything?

A limited run of wood type prints for Father’s Day
Love U Dad
Chip off the old block. A Father's day wood type print by Pop Press.

GIFTS FOR ALL OCCASIONS

Cute Christmas cards with a creative twist

Mini Xmas
Drunk Dog. A letterpress card by Pop Press.

Meet Drunk Dog!

EXPERIMENTAL
TYPE WORKSHOP

THEME

EXPERIMENT WITH TYPE

‍

SPONSOR

REAL CREATIVE FUTURES

‍

Host a workshop

GENERATE A REAL CREATIVE BUZZ

1
Create a workshop concept

THE MORE CREATIVE, THE BETTER

2
Spread the word

SET UP AN EVENT ONLINE AND POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA

3
Host the workshop

THERE WAS PLENTY OF SPACE FOR THIS AT THE POP PRESS HQ

4
Share the results on Socials

THE RESULTS WERE INSPIRING AND MADE GREAT CONTENT

EXCHANGE OF IDEAS

The workshops allowed local artists to try new processes. It allowed us to experiment with techniques we could use to produce original new work.

ADVENTURES IN NATURE

SMILING WHALE
Happy Whale. A letterpress card by pop Press.

A playful, friendly design

MANCHESTER

PRINT FAIR
AT THE WHITWORTH GALLERY
October 21, 2018
  • CENTRAL LIBRARY
  • LOWRY
  • MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY
  • TOWN HALL
  • CHINA TOWN

MINI NATURE CARDS

A little taste of Spring
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MING
The smaller A7 format gave the Mini Nature range a cute appeal akin
to bonsai trees.
THE SPRING RANGE INCLUDED
  • Livistona
  • Iris
  • Daffodils
  • Primulas

Hull Landmarks

A surprise hit with the locals!
Hull letterpress landmark coaster set by Pop Press
Best Seller!
We tested the market for our Hull Landmarks with our letterpress designs. They sold like hotcakes so we knew we were onto a winner...
  • THE DEEP
  • MARITIME MUSEUM
  • HULL MINSTER
  • HUMBER BRIDGE
  • TIDAL BARRIER

Experiments in

WOOD TYPE
Experimental letterpress print of repeating Os

Experimental letterpress print using repeated Os

Selling the shop
2019
Is this the end
of Pop Press?

A disastrous water main bursts! And floods the Pop Press shop. Then Covid19 hits the world.

We move to a temporary studio whilst the Grade II listed building is repaired.
18 months later the shop repairs are finally finished.

We decide to sell the shop back to the Malt Cross where it can be a whole building again.

disaster strikes

FLOOD!
The Pop Press shop in Nottingham after a flood

When a water main leak collapsed the cellar retaining wall, our building had to be condemned

AFTER THE FLOOD WE MOVED TO A NEW STUDIO

STUDIO MOVE
Pop Press's studio in Saint Anns, Nottingham
NOTEBOOK STOCKISTS:
  • Form SE15
  • Holly & Co
  • Manchester Royal Exchange
  • Form (Hull)

Tough times

‍
Ming & Steve were spread very thin trying to do everything by themselves
Steve from Pop Press at The Malt Cross bar in Nottingham
  • FAIRS
  • WORKSHOPS
  • ECOMMERCE
  • PRINTMAKING
  • RUNNING A SHOP & BUSINESS
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FROM
OUR
ARCHIVE!








PRINT
&
BEYOND
INK.
PAPER.
MEMORIES.
LEOPARDS
An illustrated animation of three leopards in a tree.
IN
THE JUNGLE
MAKE LASTING
IMPRESSIONS

Catch the last of our lettepressed goods whilst you can!

We’ve waved goodbye to ‘Doris’, our beloved antique Arab letterpress made in Halifax.
‍
But we’re not quite done yet. We’ll be selling the last of our limited-edition letterpress goods at fairs in 2025. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, so catch them while you can!

We now specialise in web design, web development and marketing services, working with businesses who need to make the same transition. Find out more ...

FINDING
Animated illustration of a kingfisher with a fish in it's beak.
OUR NICHE
MAKE LASTING
IMPRESSIONS

WHAT'S NEXT FOR POP PRESS?

Running a letterpress retail business was more than just a creative outlet, it was also a  journey of mastering new skills and turning passion into products people love.

We now specialise in web design, web development and marketing services, working with businesses who need to make the same transition. Find out more ...

ONTO THE NEXT
An illustrated animation of a Saint Bernard dog with a spinning bowtie.
CREATIVE
ADVENTURE!
MAKE LASTING
IMPRESSIONS

Lettepress on pause
but creativity continues!

From exploring traditional printmaking to fresh digital projects like web development, we’re excited to share what’s next—stay tuned!

We now specialise in web design, web development and marketing services, working with businesses who need to make the same transition. Find out more ...

Keep up with our developing story...

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