Letterpress Field Trip

by melaniejgonz

  The letterpress’ purpose is to create a text and image. The process is an amazing one. The letterpress uses a wordpress, moveable type and ink. Ink is placed on a raised surface and with the pull of a lever, is placed on the paper leaving a beautiful image and text. I got to see this process firsthand when my class and I took a field trip to visit an actual letterpress.

We got to see how the machine worked its magic. We all got a chance to work the machine. I found it so cool how big and powerful the machine was. The letterpress was used for a long time in the 15th to 19th century. It was fundamentally created by Johannes Gutenberg and was the source to create text on paper, or any other kind of surface.