San Francisco Center for the Book

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 4: Digital into Analog

Digital designs can be turned into photopolymer plates with a raised printing surface, allowing for artistic expression via letterpress that goes beyond lead and wood. You'll choose designs from our pre-made collection of polymer plates and create a coordinated stationery suite of cards, letter sheets, and envelopes using both plates and type from our 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:
Cylinder Core 1-3

Materials to Bring:
All tools and materials will be provided. Students will be designing on the fly from our collection of polymer plates, but can think ahead about whether they want traditional stationery with name/address, or something more whimsical.

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.