Letterpress changed how I look at poster layouts now

I used to design everything with unlimited layers and drop shadows in my head, then print on a laser printer. Last spring I took a weekend workshop at a local print shop in Cleveland and set actual metal type for a small run of event flyers. The physical constraints, like line breaks you can't fudge and ink that spreads, forced me to simplify way before I touched a screen. Now I sketch poster grids on paper first and see digital spacing as a suggestion, not a rule. Has anyone else shifted their whole process after one hands-on print session?

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uma_patel195d ago

One weekend workshop and suddenly digital spacing is just a suggestion? That sounds like the kind of big talk people have right after a fun class. I get that setting metal type feels REAL and messy and cool, but your whole design process did not change because of one print run. You probably just got excited about something new for a few weeks. Give it six months and see if you still sketch grids on paper before every project. If you do, great, but most folks fall back into old habits once the shine wears off. The ink spreading thing is real, but it doesn't invalidate everything you learned before either.