Letterpress: A Survey of Print Culture or an Immersive Learning Experience

This paper explores the culture of letterpress printing within Art and Design education in the UK and Ireland. It describes two phases of research over the last four years. The first is based on an immersive collaborative letterpress research project, in which staff and students from six UK Colleges worked together to research, write and print a letterpress publication. The second phase is a comprehensive, systematic field survey of all of the remaining letterpress workshops within Art and Design Higher and Further Education in Britain and Ireland since 1955. The combined findings of these two phases of research enable the authors to form a position in relation to the changing culture of letterpress and its role in education.