Every day this week I spent some time at the print shop, even if it was only an hour or two; there was type to set, type to sort, drawers to consolidate. And there is more still. I haven't gotten on the press yet, so far lacking gumption or some such thing, but I'm building up to it. I hadn't realized how much I needed a place to go.
How about this tiny, tiny type? This is a 6 point ch ligature (two letter forms combined on one piece of type so that the serifs can overlap properly. The typical ligatures we have in the US are ff, fi, fl, ffi) which you use quite a lot in German, especially setting something book-related, which I was. (das Buch, die Bücher.)
The type was so small, it took me about 2 1/4 hours to set 18 lines. I'm helping one of the printers (Florian) with a project. It's nice to not have to be creative, and to just have a task. The mind empties out. You can focus. Capital H, o, l, z. Where is z. Do I need a ligature? Etc. It's quite satisfying.
I realized, looking at that picture, that I accidentally included an upper-case Z where a lower-case z belonged. Whoops.
ReplyDeleteno more convincing needed--i'm coming to visit.
ReplyDeletei'll be here. i mean, i'll be in the shop. you know.
ReplyDelete