Tag Archives: Shakespeare Press Museum

Designing a monogram font

Posted on April 15, 2022 by Brian Lawler

Years ago I made a reproduction-quality proof of a type font in the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly. This font is comprised a sets of three letters that can be assembled into monograms. Monograms were quite popular for business … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Typography | Tagged Blognosticator, Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, Monogram font, Monograms, Shakespeare Press Museum | Leave a comment

Lining Livermore, der zweite Teil

Posted on February 27, 2022 by Brian Lawler

This is a continuation of a blog I wrote two days ago. To read the first part, click here. After I put all the letters (called “glyphs” In typography) into a master Adobe Illustrator document, I built the destination environment for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Software, Technology, Typography | Tagged Antique type, ATF, Blognosticator, Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, FontLab, Shakespeare Press Museum, type design, Type Network | Leave a comment

Drawing the Lining Livermore font

Posted on February 26, 2022 by Brian Lawler

Deep in the recesses of the back room of the Shakespeare Press Museum at California Polytechnic State University is a cabinet. It contains about 20 drawers of hand-set metal type. We never use this type because it is difficult to … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Typography | Tagged Adobe Illustrator, American Type Founders, Blognosticator, Brian Lawler, FontLab, Lining Livermore, Shakespeare Press Museum, The Blognosticator, type design | Leave a comment

Electronic motor control
and my obsession with a 1935 bookbinding machine

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Brian Lawler

This is the second part of my obsession story. To read the first part, please click here. And that’s where my odyssey began. Alternating current induction motors use the frequency of the line power (60 Hz in our case) to … Continue reading →

Posted in Bookbinding, Education, Imposition and Pagination, New technology, Printing and Printing Processes, Technology | Tagged bookbinding, Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, Graphic Communication Department, Shakespeare Press Museum, Smyth book sewing machine, TECO/Westinghouse VFD | Leave a comment

Running the five-color
Pearl press postcard

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Brian Lawler

In 2019 I began the restoration of an 1895 Pearl press, a treadle-powered letterpress that was donated to the Cal Poly Shakespeare Press Museum. That press was a rusty machine when we took delivery of it. I took it to … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Printing and Printing Processes, Software, Technology, Typography, Uncategorized | Tagged Brian Lawler, Heidelberg Windmill, letterpress printing, multicolor printing, Pearl press, precise printing, Shakespeare Press Museum | Leave a comment

Reminiscences of a prepress guy

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Brian Lawler

I am an old prepress guy. I owned one of the first PostScript service bureaus in the U.S. I was there at the beginning. It was painful, but overall it was a great business. We had been traditional typographers, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Color Management, History, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes, Software | Tagged Antique press, Cal Poly, Color separation files from Illustrator, Golding Pearl restoration, Shakespeare Press Museum, Spot-color separations from Illustrator | Leave a comment

Prince Bold made Neue

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Every really cool font eventually comes out in a “neue” version. The most famous is Helvetica Neue, which was the modernized version of Helvetica, with its normalized weights and corrected curves and very subtle curve changes. Prince Bold is based … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, New technology, Typography | Tagged Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, letter forms, letterpress, Raymond Prince, Shakespeare Press Museum, type design, wood type | Leave a comment

Printing on a 126-year-old press, and loving it!

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Brian Lawler

I am engaged as a human printing engine this week (and next). The president of our university and his wife want a letterpress Christmas card this year, so have engaged the design and production forces at-hand to produce these cards. … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Printing and Printing Processes, Technology, Typography | Tagged antique printing press, Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, letterpress printing, Owosso, Peerless Jobber, printing, Ramco, Shakespeare Press Museum | 2 Comments

You wanted kerning! You get kerning!

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Brian Lawler

Last week I promised to write a blog about the next step in making my Lining Livermore typeface. I thought I was farther in the process than I was. Getting letters to fit adjacent to each other is a difficult … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Software, Typography | Tagged Brian Lawler, historic type design, Jim Parkinson, Lining Livermore, Shakespeare Press Museum, type design, typographical archaeology, typography | Leave a comment

Drawing the lozenge for Lining Livermore

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Brian Lawler

…continued from yesterday’s blog I’m probably never going to need the lozenge character in any typographic project I do. Nonetheless, it’s there, ready for me, whenever I choose to use it. That’s exciting. The lonely lozenge. I don’t know what … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Typography | Tagged Antique type, drawing fonts, font softwware, FontLab, hand-set type, letterpress printing, Lining Livermore, Shakespeare Press Museum, typographie | 2 Comments