This post consists of two parts: A documentation of the process, and my reflection on the process.
Process
1. Identify word: I wanted to find a word that would be easy to carve, so I looked up a scrabble word finder and put in letters consisting of straight lines only. I decided on the word “THINK”.
2. Create stencil: I opened up Illustrator, typed in my word, chose my favourite sans serif font (again, for easier carving!), mirrored the word, and printed it out. I also did two sizes so I would have options considering the size of the potatoes.
3. Prepare ‘letterpress’: I cut out my letter stencils, and also cut the side of the potatoes that would be carved into to the same size.
4. Carve letters: I carved the letters into the potatoes.
5. Put letters together: I originally planned to stick the skewers through the potatoes to hold them together, but it turned out to be very challenging. I then thought to glue the potatoes themselves together, but it did not hold whatsoever. I ended up cutting the backs of the stamps to the same size and gluing the backs to the skewers.
6. Print: Once the glue dried, I prepared the ink, and used the ends of the skewers as ‘handles’ in stamping the word onto the sheet of paper.
Reflection
I was particularly excited about this task! My undergrad was in visual art and I recently bought supplies to try to pick back up on block printing, so this task served perfectly as practice.
In reflecting on my process, a few themes jump out at me:
Existing knowledge (and its influence)
It’s been years since I’ve done block printing and I would’ve said I don’t recall how to do it at all, but upon reflecting on my process, I may have retained more than I realized. This reminds me of Lamb’s (2021) point about the influence of existing knowledge in that since we’re “not a scroll-based culture, … we imagine the regular use of scroll as being somewhat alien and clumsy” (Lamb & McCormick, 2021) – except in my case it’s the reverse, in that I hadn’t considered how much my previous experience influenced my approach, such as:
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- considering the shapes of the letters and the level of difficulty in carving them;
- choosing to use a sans serif font for ease in carving the letters – I had no intentions of “imitat[ing] handwriting” like Gutenberg (Peña, 2022); and
- creating a mirrored stencil so that the stamp would print the right way.
I didn’t consciously think of these considerations before I started, which is ironic given the word I chose. I just jumped right into it, and it took me about 15 minutes from choosing the word (step #1 above) to having carved the stamps (step #4).
New knowledge (through trial and error)
The one challenge I ran into was putting the letters together (step #5). I even rewatched Cooke’s (2012) short film on letterpress for inspiration on how to hold the stamps together, but that didn’t help. This trial and error added 20 minutes to my process, which is longer than the time I took for all the previous steps!
If I were to create a new stamp, now that I’ve figured out how to put the letters together, I imagine this part would take less than five minutes.
Connecting knowledge (and the evolution of technology)
I also realize now that, without thinking, I used a printer to aid my process… to print a word. In other words, I used the technology available to me now, which is made possible through what Bolter (2001) referred to as the “remediation” of the mechanization of writing (Bolter, 2001, as cited in Peña, 2022), in trying to experience the effort required to execute the origins of the technology of print. To close the loop on this silliness, I also scanned in my sheet to make it available to anyone who would like to print out a copy using their printers.
think_JocelynChan_ETEC540_task4.pdf
The technology available to us now allows us to print a whole page at home in a matter of seconds, whereas it would take me 30 minutes to carve and print a five-letter word. In addition, the printer prints significantly more consistently than I could with my stamps, as can be seen on my sheet with the variation of ink for each of the prints. This makes me especially appreciate the increasing speed and quality of print afforded by its remediation over the past 500 years.
References
Danny Cooke Freelance Filmmaker. (2012, January 26). Upside down, left to right: A letterpress film [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6RqWe1bFpM
Lamb, R., & McCormick, J. (2021, May 14). From the vault: Invention of the book, part 2 [Audio podcast episode]. In Stuff to blow your mind. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-to-blow-your-mind-21123915/episode/from-the-vault-invention-of-the-82564254/
Peña, E. (2022). [4.3] Economies of writing -or- writing about writing. In ETEC 540: Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing. The University of British Columbia.
Hey Jocelyn,
I appreciate your use of visuals to accompany the process of your text making in this task, it looks great! I wonder, did you find you felt more connected to your text after spending a lot of time making it rather than perhaps quickly typing something creatively? I ask this because I feel like perhaps that is something missing between typing something out rather than crafting it by hand as alluded to in the Cooke (2012) video where the letterpress is seen being revisited in modern times by people looking for authenticity and the ‘art of the process’.
Thank you for your comment Alexis!
That’s such a great question. I was just thinking something similar as I was doing the readings for week 5. In the same sense that spell check in the UK influenced the -ise spelling (Zaltzman & McCulloch, 2019), I wondered how much of my understanding of the act of writing is influenced by how I learned to write and the technology I’ve had access to.
I’ve been used to what Bolter (2010) referred to as “prewriting” (Bolter, 2010, p. 33), as well as the affordances of word processors, since I started writing essays in elementary school. I remember that if I had to submit an essay that had to be handwritten, I would draft it on my computer at home and copy it out by hand!
In short, to answer your question directly, I’m thinking ‘authenticity’ may mean different things to different people, depending on the technologies they used as they learned. In any case, I absolutely agree with Collier that, especially in the digital age, crafting by hand is “therapeutic” and “an art form” (Cooke, 2012). I think there’s similarities here to things like film vs. digital photography, manual vs. automatic/self-driving cars, and craft vs. mass-produced beer.
References
Bolter, J. D. (2010). Hypertext and the remediation of print. In Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (pp. 27-46). Routledge.
Danny Cooke Freelance Filmmaker. (2012, January 26). Upside down, left to right: A letterpress film [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6RqWe1bFpM
Zaltzman, H., & McCulloch, G. (2019). 102. New rules [Audio podcast episode]. In The Allusionist. https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/new-rules
Hi Jocelyn
I feel like your expertise, and overall assignment blew my assignment out of the water – it’s really well done! Your integration of skewers to connect the letters was a good idea. As you mention, existing knowledge is key to doing an assignment like this. Before you began the task you considered more aspects of the process than I had thought of before I started. This is definitely why it took you a quarter of the time it took me to complete carving the letters. I would say our two assignments don’t necessarily connect; in fact, I would say that we approached making the press completely different. I generally went about making the press by learning and addressing issues on the fly. My preference is to learn an activity through trial and error. I felt like I learned a lot from making my own potato press, but I learned more once I read how you did yours.
I was wondering how you decided that sans serif would be easier to carve instead of… say, Times New Roman? I had to address this issue when making my “a,” as my first attempt failed, and I chose the typewriter ‘a’ and had more success. As you mention, Gutenberg chose to copy ‘handwritten’ text. Do you think he would have had the same success replacing the existing medium if he chose a font that was easier to press rather than a cursive font (Peña, 2022)?
Elvio
Thank you for your kind words Elvio! I definitely had an advantage for this task. I agree with you about learning through trial and error — for my stamps, the part where I had to figure out how to put the letters together was the most challenging, but also the most fun and rewarding.
I decided against serif fonts simply so I wouldn’t have to carve out the little feet for each letter, haha! In regards to Gutenberg, my understanding is that Gutenberg and other early printers initially had not consider how to alter the letters so that they were easier to print, and aimed to replicate handwriting because it was how books were written prior to the invention of the letterpress — Bolter (2010) stated that “[b]ecause early printers tried to make their books identical to fine manuscripts, they used the same thick letter forms, the same ligatures and abbreviations, and the same layout on the page … It took a few generations for printers to realize that they could create a new writing space with thinner letters, fewer abbreviations, and less ink” (Bolter, 2010, p. 8).
Your comment got me wondering when Gutenberg developed the press and when sans serif fonts were invented. It looks like Gutenberg’s press was created in the mid-1400s (Bolter, 2010, p. 7), and san serif fonts were created in the 1700s (Sans-serif, 2022), which means the remediation of handwritten to san serif fonts happened over three centuries!
References
Bolter, J. D. (2010). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Routledge.
Sans-serif. (2022, March 3). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sans-serif&oldid=1074943824
This is so interesting Jocelyn and Elvio, I hadn’t really thought about when “fonts” started to take over from traditional handwriting letter forms. It’s so crazy that ti took three centuries to get to a sans serif font!
I also wanted to add that I loved the idea of putting a skewer through the potato letters. I didn’t think of that and instead spent some time making sure that each potato piece was a similar size and that the letter were centred so that they would come out reasonably straight. The skewers are a much better idea! I also went for an Arial-based font because I didn’t want to have to much about with tiny feet or flourishes on my letters. I’m amazed that printers took so long to change their formats.
Hi Kelcie! I was also surprised to learn that it took three centuries to get to sans serif. It makes me wonder what we may still be holding onto now simply for the sake of mimicking something of the past!
Hello Jocelyn!
First of all, I love that you included your process in timelapse! As a very visual person, it was really fun and easy to understand what you did at a glance, so I really appreciated that.
I didn’t know you came from a visual arts background until I saw your comment on my Twine Game post! I am not academically from a visual arts background, but many of my homeroom teachers were involved in art, so I was able to explore art in so many different ways in my formidable years.
Previous experience in block printing really showed through the methodology and approach you took, especially when making a mockup digitally and choosing fonts. Having the correct tool to carve the stamps also helped a lot! I thought the way you put the letters together with a skewer was really clever!
I also really like how you included the sections of existing knowledge and new knowledge, and the connection between the two, there is always something new to learn and discover, regardless of how experienced one is!
Anyways, I am just really excited to see someone else just as passionate about art and wanted to say hello!!!
Thanks so much for stopping by Sophy!
I’m glad you liked the timelapse! I was really looking forward to this task and thought it might be interesting to document it.
I really enjoyed your post for Task 4 (you referenced printmaking, risographs, Photoshop, Wacom) and thought you might be from a visual art background as well! I wasn’t familiar with Moniker Press before your post — I’d love to visit when they’re open again.
Hi Jocelyn,
This is so impressive! I love how you documented your creation process using videos, and your end product is so professional and awesome.
I totally agree with you that existing knowledge plays a significant role in shaping our work. As someone who has not done this before, I did not use any tool other than the carving knife and paper, and I carved my potato in the wrong direction (without considering the mirrored effect). Your post made me realize that the task does not require additional cognitive effort if we use the appropriate tools. The printer simplifies the carving, and the skewer simplifies the reprint.
Text technologies influence how knowledge is constructed, distributed, and materialized. It is difficult to mass-produce books with potato stamps. At the same time, people constantly enhance text technologies to simplify our daily work and to satisfy our needs. As a result, the later text technologies replace the previous technologies or make them obsolete. For example, as you mentioned, the printer remediates the potato stamp. The new technology becomes a part of our tool set, and it shapes our thinking (i.e. it is difficult not to think about using it for creating the potato stamp).
Hi Helen, thanks so much for your comment! Your point on cognitive effort reminded me of the concept of information processing and short-term vs. long-term memory from ETEC 512. It didn’t seem to require much additional cognitive effort for me, probably because some form of this knowledge exists in my long-term memory.
Your point about how technology shapes our thinking also really resonated with me. Admittedly, until I saw some of the other potato stamps from our class, it didn’t even cross my mind that the letters don’t have to be based on a digital font. I’m now thinking my approach was influenced by the fact that I don’t write by hand at all!
Thank you for extending my thinking with both of your thoughtful points!