Exposition

Extending current digital art and design space with custom analogue printing tools: Designing, Fabricating and Testing the XT-Press — a DIY Cylinder Proof Press (last edited: 2023)

Pedro Amado, Cristina Ferreira, Maíra Woloszyn
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open exposition

About this exposition

We are currently experiencing a letterpress revival. An international trend that has become more evident in the past two decades. As a technological process and craft-based activity, letterpress printing is an empowering and pedagogical process with multiple benefits not only for Art & Design education but also for literature authors and general citizens. As this technology was offset from professional practices by the current digital technologies, material, printing equipment, and expert know-how have slowly been disappearing. Thus it has been increasingly difficult for students, designers, and artists alike to explore and learn this process. The role of schools and associations is paramount to maintaining and promoting its legacy. As well as to integrate this practice into current activities. But as material becomes increasingly scarce and expensive, or in order to provide this experience to individuals or students at home, we have to find alternatives to explore this process and technologies into current traditional, or hybrid practices. The aim of this exposition is to present the research and development process of a simple and affordable cylinder-proof press that can be fabricated by individuals at home or in educational environments. This exhibition presents a sample of relevant projects and initiatives that aim to revitalize this practice. But it mainly focuses on presenting a critical description of a sample of proof presses being developed since 2018 and used throughout the international community. It then presents the development of the custom-designed press with graphic and editorial designers as their main target audience. We have employed a research-driven process of iterative design, prototyping, testing, analysis, and refinement of the concept. It has been organized in a five-person team composed of professors, researchers, and post-graduate students in three phases As a result, the first iteration of the cylinder-proof press has been developed and tested. As a result, the printer schematics have been designed and are being made available for community members to download and build Currently, the first iteration has been developed and the first prints have been tested. We have found out several technical issues that are correlated with the aesthetic output. But more importantly, during these first tests, technical issues must be addressed in order to allow for a less hindered printer handling process. Issues such as roller calibration for ink distribution, roller rails improvement that has to be balanced and evaluated according to the difficulty and complexity of building it. As a result of building a press with colleagues and students, we expect that this model can be explored (built and modified). We will build additional units and run test workshops in an academic environment soon and expect these presses and printing processes to be hybrid integrated into the current digital workflow of students. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop a shared activity — the fabrication and exploration of the XT-Press — to promote cultural interactions with the general community. In turn, this will empower the participants in a shared act to promote cultural heritage and identity equality — be it gender, race, age, or literacy — in an intergenerational approach. FBAUP
typeresearch exposition
keywordsProvisional Press, Vandercook, Cylinder Proof Press, Letterpress, Editorial Design, DIY Design
date18/01/2022
last modified13/04/2023
statusin progress
share statuspublic
affiliationFBAUP / i2ADS
copyrightPedro Amado, Cristina Ferreira, Maíra Woloszyn
licenseCC BY-NC-SA
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1497055/1497056


Simple Media

id name copyright license
1497066 XT-Press: DIY Provisional Cylinder Proof Press Pedro Manuel Reis Amado CC BY-NC-SA
1497083 Screenshot 2022-01-18 at 11.38.24 Pedro Manuel Reis Amado CC BY-NC-SA
1510782 IMG_20211119_155548 XTD Lab CC BY-NC-ND
1510791 20220121-6B2A4875-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510795 IMG_0025 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510804 20220121-6B2A4860-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510809 IMG_0017 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510818 20220121-6B2A4884-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510824 20220121-6B2A4855-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510834 20220121-6B2A4884-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510840 20220121-6B2A4951-2 copy XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510861 20220121-6B2A4920-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510865 20220121-6B2A4948-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510880 20211220_164420 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1510893 IMG_0455 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1512769 20220121-6B2A4875-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1512770 20220121-6B2A4860-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1512771 20220121-6B2A4855-2 copy XTD Lab All rights reserved
1512773 20220121-6B2A4884-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1512775 20220121-6B2A4951-2 copy XTD Lab All rights reserved
1512776 20220121-6B2A4920-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1512780 20220121-6B2A4948-2 XTD Lab All rights reserved
1828078 20220121-6B2A4955-2-clean copy Pedro Amado, Cristina Ferreira, Maíra Woloszyn CC BY-NC-ND
1872690 Screenshot 2022-12-19 at 12.57.16 https://vandercookpress.info/timeline/ All rights reserved
1872695 Screenshot 2022-12-19 at 13.04.28 https://letterpresscommons.com/press/vandercook-sp-15/ All rights reserved
1880166 open-press-2 https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/04/open-press-project/ All rights reserved
1880170 open-press-3 https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/04/open-press-project/ All rights reserved
1880172 dfe8ed_9f7ed666208e4b80ae52ae29a343122e~mv2 https://www.provisionalpress.com/product-page/provisional-press-kit All rights reserved
1880176 dfe8ed_d06886ff3f1b481692c7988c056c45e5~mv2 https://www.provisionalpress.com/product-page/provisional-press-kit All rights reserved
1880184 dfe8ed_9f7ed666208e4b80ae52ae29a343122e~mv2 https://www.provisionalpress.com/product-page/provisional-press-kit All rights reserved
1880187 dfe8ed_9f7ed666208e4b80ae52ae29a343122e~mv2 https://www.provisionalpress.com/product-page/provisional-press-kit All rights reserved
1880189 dfe8ed_d06886ff3f1b481692c7988c056c45e5~mv2 https://www.provisionalpress.com/product-page/provisional-press-kit All rights reserved
1880199 Split_NT_June2018_p2-49-1-1 https://www.split.co.uk/work/the-people-powered-press/ All rights reserved
1880201 TNT-LAUNCH-JUN18-6014 https://www.split.co.uk/work/the-people-powered-press/ All rights reserved

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