BACK TO BASICS

I spend all day working with the most current technology available to designers at my fingertips. Give me just a few strokes of the mouse and throw in a couple key commands and  I'll pump out corporate collateral at double the speed I was able to produce at a mere five years ago. Really amazing stuff. But as a designer, there's something I find lacking. When I am able to create that quickly, I miss out on building an attachment to each of my designs. Maybe I'm being a melodramatic 'artiste,' but I have always loved the blood/sweat/tears element of creating art. I love the problem-solving, the construction, the steady hand and the patience involved in art. It makes you care what happens to each piece once it leaves your hands and helps you remember it when it's gone.

Earlier this month, I took a step to reconnect with that slowed-down pace of creating. I bought a completely antiquated heap of iron and lead in the form of a Kelsey tabletop letterpress. These "hobby presses," as they were called, were manufactured and sold for the better part of the last two centuries. My particular press was made in the 1930s. Since the 1980s, all manufacturing of new presses has been ceased, but interest in these now antique presses remains strong. My press, the Excelsior 5x8 Model Victor has no duel processor, no apple cinema display, no auto recover. There's no CTRL+ALT+DEL in letterpress.

This blog will stand as a record for my progress in dismissing technological progress and getting back to basics.