HATCH SHOW PRINT
LETTERPRESS LAYOUT DESIGN PRINTMAKING
What is this?
Just a block from the bustling shops and bars of downtown Nashville sits Hatch Show Print, one of America’s oldest working letterpress print shops. Since 1879, Hatch designers have been setting and hand-printing posters for touring musicians, brands, and everything in-between. 145 years later, I had the unique privilege of learning their craft firsthand as an apprentice—designing posters with wood and metal type, operating historic presses, and proving that print is, indeed, still very much alive.
Planning and typesetting
Each poster begins with a sketch. Some more polished than others, but all serving as a roadmap for the final poster. From there, the hunt begins. Every wall, shelf, and drawer in Hatch holds pieces of letterpress history: typeforms from 8 point to 3 feet tall, and image blocks ranging from rodeo cowboys to forklifts.
The poster is set letter-by-letter, line-by-line, upside down and backwards (I know, awesome, right?). Designing means working with what physically exists in the shop, not pulling from an endless digital font library.
Inking and printing
Before anything touches paper, the ink has to be mixed by hand, meticulously blending base inks to match Pantone colors. Now, for how the how paper and ink and type and pressure relate:
Vandercook printing presses were originally built for proofing newspaper type. These half-ton behemoths are the workhorses of Hatch, and each job starts the same way: lock up the type, set the pressure, and pull a proof. Adjust. Pull another. Adjust. Another. You get the idea.
Then the fun begins. Cranking the press, feeding sheets, watching ink transfer from roller to type to paper to final poster!
HATCH SHOW PRINT
LETTERPRESS LAYOUT DESIGN PRINTMAKING
What is this?
Just a block from the bustling shops and bars of downtown Nashville sits Hatch Show Print, one of America’s oldest working letterpress print shops. Since 1879, Hatch designers have been setting and hand-printing posters for touring musicians, brands, and everything in-between. 145 years later, I had the unique privilege of learning their craft firsthand as an apprentice—designing posters with wood and metal type, operating historic presses, and proving that print is, indeed, still very much alive.
Planning and typesetting
Each poster begins with a sketch. Some more polished than others, but all serving as a roadmap for the final poster. From there, the hunt begins. Every wall, shelf, and drawer in Hatch holds pieces of letterpress history: typeforms from 8 point to 3 feet tall, and image blocks ranging from rodeo cowboys to forklifts.
The poster is set letter-by-letter, line-by-line, upside down and backwards. Designing means working with what physically exists in the shop, not pulling from an endless digital font library.
Inking and printing
Before anything touches paper, the ink has to be mixed by hand, carefully blending base inks to match Pantone colors.
Vandercook presses were originally built for proofing newspaper type. These half-ton machines are the workhorses of Hatch: lock up the type, set the pressure, pull a proof, adjust, and repeat until everything is perfect.
Then comes printing—cranking the press, feeding sheets, and watching ink transfer from roller to type to paper.