Now that you've completed the Cylinder Core series, you can become certified on the jobbing platen, which was developed to meet the demand for greater volumes of printing with shorter production times. 

Day 1 :: Postcard Express
Design, set up and run an edition of 50 postcards in this class that introduces the efficient mechanics of a Chandler & Price jobbing platen press.

Day 2 :: Photopolymer on the Platen
The development of photopolymer opened up a new world of possibilities for letterpress. This class teaches you to integrate platen printing with polymer plates, allowing you to print whatever ephemera you can dream up!

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite:
Cylinder Core 1-4. Students who register but have not satisfied the prerequisite will be de-enrolled.

Materials to bring:
None. All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor:
Alan Hillesheim (he/him) has been wrenching around printing presses for 35 years. Printing presses need to be moved, oiled, inked, cleaned, and maintained, in short they need attention like a six year old. Maintenance is a dirty business, but a necessary one for beautifully printed anything. Alan has a passion for the mechanics of the print studio and enjoys encouraging others to roll up their sleeves and grab a wrench. His 35 years in the letterpress business and “all-ten-fingers” count speak for themselves. Join him and wear old clothes.

Oh, and once the press is in fine order, Alan has a few secrets to divulge about perfect inking and stellar printing.

If you have heard about letterpress but are not really sure what it is or how it works, this class will allow you to peer inside the rich history and engaging techniques of letterpress printing.

This class introduces the process, the materials, the machines, and the satisfaction of printing by hand on a Cylinder proof press. Participants will learn the basics of setting type using SFCB’s vast collection of lead type and decorative ornaments as well as inking, locking up and pulling a print.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite: None

Materials to bring: None

About the Instructor: Brian Lieske (he/him) wandered into SFCB many years ago and continues to haunt the place. He completed both the bookbinding and letterpress cores as well as several of the summer historic structure classes. He enjoys making fully hand-sewn books and still fights to not over-tighten his kettle stitches. He’s lived in San Francisco for more than 20 years having arrived shortly after completing an MFA at the University of Texas at Austin.

Does this sound familiar: You have a print project you want to get started on. You know what paper you want to use but are unsure about pre-trimming your stock or planning for best usage or making sure the grain runs in the proper direction for your final trim. If so, then we have got the workshop for you: this one!

This in-depth introduction to paper cutting will help you understand what to buy (and how much) as well as how to plan for, understand, and safely (& accurately!) trim your paper. We will cover cut scheduling, grain direction, back trim, machine safety, and final trims of printed sheets with (or without) crop marks.

There are no prerequisites, but this workshop is especially great for students who have completed our Cylinder Core series and want to pursue their own projects outside of an 8.5x11” dimensionality. 

Students who complete this course will be certified to rent time on SFCB's guillotines and electric paper cutter.

Prerequisite:
None

Materials to bring:
All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor:
Alan Hillesheim (he/him) has been wrenching around printing presses for 35 years. Printing presses need to be moved, oiled, inked, cleaned, and maintained, in short they need attention like a six year old. Maintenance is a dirty business, but a necessary one for beautifully printed anything. Alan has a passion for the mechanics of the print studio and enjoys encouraging others to roll up their sleeves and grab a wrench. His 35 years in the letterpress business and “all-ten-fingers” count speak for themselves. Join him and wear old clothes.

Oh, and once the press is in fine order, Alan has a few secrets to divulge about perfect inking and stellar printing.

Cylinder Core Certificate Program

The four class Cylinder Core Certificate Program allows students to move quickly through press basics while also addressing relief printing in general. Students who finish the four Core classes are qualified to rent press time as well as move on to more advanced classes and techniques. Core classes must be taken in order, 1 through 4.

Click here to learn more about the Cylinder Core Certificate Program and how to receive a discount!

Cylinder Core 1: Experience Letterpress!

Dig in to the tradition and history of letterpress printing and get your hands dirty. Learn about the process and practice of setting type, mixing inks and pulling impressions. Students will design and print a small edition of a single-color folded greeting card using the type and cuts (images) in the SFCB collection.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite: None

Materials to bring: All tools and materials will be provided. Students can come with a few phrases/ideas for their greeting card.

Please note: Class projects are for learning particular skills and supporting class dynamics. Project ideas should be flexible, open to what class time and communal studio use will permit.

About the Instructor: Brian Ferrett (he/him) has a printing degree from MATC and worked in offset web and screen printing. In 2008 he joined M&H Type as a typecasting apprentice under Lewis Mitchell. These days he manages M&H's daily operations, maintains the historic casting machines and presses, casts type, and prints for the various Arion Press publications. Brian is a member of the Northern California chapter of the American Printing History Association, the American Typecaster Fellowship, and volunteers with San Francisco Public Library's annual Valentine’s Day broadside event. In his spare time he plays around with his Vandercook 219AB, C&P New Style 10x15, and his two Kelseys.

Discover how to dampen paper, use bearers, and finesse rubber-and oil-based inks on Cylinder and Jobbing Platen Presses for better ink coverage and control.

Learn the secrets to better printing through proper inking techniques. This workshop is an in-depth review of how to apply and manipulate ink on Cylinder and Jobbing Platen presses, providing tips that will help students at all levels to become more successful printers. 

The instructor will provide tips on the use of rubber- and- oil-based inks on various papers. Students will learn why and how to dampen paper for better ink coverage, why allowing ink to set gives better results, and how to use bearers for better ink control. Students will also learn how to mix ink and what kind of ink additives give more control.

This is less of a hands-on class, more of a deep dive into best practices. Be prepared to take notes!

Prerequisite: None

Materials to bring: All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor: Alan Hillesheim (he/him) has been wrenching around printing presses for 35 years. Printing presses need to be moved, oiled, inked, cleaned, and maintained, in short they need attention like a six year old. Maintenance is a dirty business, but a necessary one for beautifully printed anything. Alan has a passion for the mechanics of the print studio and enjoys encouraging others to roll up their sleeves and grab a wrench. His 35 years in the letterpress business and “all-ten-fingers” count speak for themselves. Join him and wear old clothes.

Oh, and once the press is in fine order, Alan has a few secrets to divulge about perfect inking and stellar printing.

Cylinder Core Certificate Program

The four class Cylinder Core Certificate Program allows students to move quickly through press basics while also addressing relief printing in general. Students who finish the four Core classes are qualified to rent press time as well as move on to more advanced classes and techniques. Core classes must be taken in order, 1 through 4.

Click here to learn more about the Cylinder Core Certificate Program and how to receive a discount.

Cylinder Core 2: Power of the Broadside

A broadside is a single-sided printed sheet historically used for advertisements, proclamations, or other public announcements, though in modern times they're most often used for poetry.

In Core 2 you'll build your letterpress skills: learn advanced justification, typesetting, and composition, then put it all together to print a single-color 8 x 10" broadside of your own design.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite: Cylinder Core 1

Materials to Bring: All tools and materials are provided. 

Students can bring some ideas for what to set as multi-line text, with the understanding that the instructor will have final say in what will be appropriate for this project. Poems, song lyrics, and pithy paragraphs are good candidates.

Please note: Class projects are for learning particular skills and supporting class dynamics. Project ideas should be flexible, open to what class time and communal studio use will permit.

About the Instructor: Lisa Rappoport (she/her) publishes poetry broadsides and artists' books under the imprint Littoral Press. Since 1998 she has produced a series of broadsides by the poets who teach at the Community of Writers; she has also printed poetry broadsides for Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books, the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, the Northern California Book Awards, and many others (last but not least, the Poets Pulling Prints series of the SFCB). Her poetry has appeared in Nostos, Five Fingers Review, Literal Latte, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 1998 Icarus Poetry Competition and the recipient of a poetry residency at Centrum. Her poetry collection Penumbra was published by Longship Press in 2019. Her book The Short Goodbye received the Alastair Johnston Fine Press Award and was a runner-up in the Carl Hertzog Award for Excellence in Book Design. Lisa has taught at the New College in San Francisco, at a middle school in Lafayette, and in her own studio. Her work has been displayed nationally and is in collections throughout the U.S. You can visit her website at littoralpress.com.

Looking to expand your letterpress skills? In this class, we will explore improvisatory ways of creating multicolor prints on the Vandercook without locking up typeforms on the press bed.

Freestyle letterpress printing is an improvisational approach where type and ornamentation are inked by hand in different colors and creatively placed on the press bed (without using quoins or furniture to lock them down). This gives you the opportunity to quickly and easily create unique monoprints as you play with type and combinations of color.

To begin the conversation with our tools and materials, we will:

• discuss historical precedents for creative letterpress printing by H.N. Werkman and Jack Stauffacher
• learn how to safely print metal and wood blocks without locking them up with quoins and furniture
• discover strategies for inking individual blocks, layering colors, and ghost printing
• explore approaches to improvisation using text prompts, game structures, and group interactivity (e.g., exquisite corpse, call-and-response, etc.)

At the end of the workshop, you will go home with a collection of monoprints that reflect your own aesthetic explorations using the Center’s vast collection of historic letters, numbers and ornaments.

Prerequisite: Introduction to Letterpress or other Vandercook press experience.

Materials to bring: None. All tools and materials will be provided.

About the Instructor: As a sound and visual artist, Gino Robair (he/him) explores how nonrepresentational imagery influences interpretive performances in music, dance, and theatre. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of California, Davis, developing performative approaches to papermaking and letterpress printing. In November 2023, a collection of his most recent prints was exhibited at the San Francisco Center For New Music.

Cylinder Core Certificate Program

The four class Cylinder Core Certificate Program allows students to move quickly through press basics while also addressing relief printing in general. Students who finish the four Core classes are qualified to rent press time as well as move on to more advanced classes and techniques. Core classes must be taken in order, 1 through 4.

Click here to learn more about the Cylinder Core Certificate Program and how to receive a discount!

Cylinder Core 3: Posterized

Develop your letterpress design skills and aesthetic while increasing your letterpress versatility.

Learn to set up the press, refine your registration skills, and run an edition. Learn more about packing, roller height, and make-ready. Students will have access to the Center's collection of wood type and cuts (images) for this project. Come ready to run an edition of your own 12 x 15" poster!

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Materials to Bring: All tools and materials will be provided. Students can bring ideas for a poster-worthy short phrase, probably just a few words to set in large type.

Please note: Class projects are for learning particular skills and supporting class dynamics. Project ideas should be flexible, open to what class time and communal studio use will permit.

About the Instructor: Paula Gloistein (she/her) has an MA in Humanities from Dominican College which really has very little to do with her work as a photographer, designer, and letterpress printer. After more than ten years in the wedding biz, she opened a small shop, big day design lounge, that showcases handmade wedding accessories, custom invitations, and workshops for crafty couples.