The Preservation Of Letterpress Printing by Typesettingsg's Yao Yu - Men's Folio
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The Preservation Of Letterpress Printing by Typesettingsg’s Yao Yu

  • By Bryan Goh

The Preservation Of Letterpress Printing by Typesettingsg's Yao YuAs the craft of letterpress printing hits its bicentennial birthday in Singapore (it dates back itself to 1040AD), Yao Yu, an educator and founder of Typesettingsg, seeks to preserve its roots.

Hello Yao Yu, can you perhaps remember the first time you encountered the art of letterpress?
My first encounter with letterpress printing was during my design education year in SIM-RMIT Visual Communication where I was doing some research for a craftsmanship module. I started researching this form of printing online and subsequently visited a few of the contemporary letterpress shops in Singapore. That’s when contemporary letterpress printing arrived in Singapore with a tactile debossing touch, thick paper stock, and very interesting story background.

Of course, this new form was just a recent trend of 20 odd years when its traditional form phased out. The deboss finishing was marketed to the younger audience starting with the wedding industry in the US before spreading worldwide.

 

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The demise of technology like the MP3 player or even the DVD player could be attributed to the fact that it has not evolved with time. Do you think that letterpress printing could have shared the same fate that led to decreased popularity?
I think if we are comparing product to product and technology to technology, you could use the example but letterpress printing or printing press is an invention that shapes world history as it is one of the most important inventions in human history itself. Its value is not just from it being a technology or a craft because it involves culture, history, and the spreading of knowledge and information to all parts of the world.

Thousands of printing museums were set up to document this form of printing, its history and heritage instead of just being a product or printing method that will phase out as it goes out of trend.

What you are referring to maybe is just a small part of what it is as a commercial means but there is still a huge part of it that remains important to the printing museums, researchers, and private presses around the world. Whether the trend decreases in popularity or not, it will still be around in different areas — under heritage, museums, as a research topic, or private presses that will continue this form of printing in their own way.

The Preservation Of Letterpress Printing by Typesettingsg's Yao YuI understand that with older forms of media, letterpress printing might be understood in a very superficial way. What do most youths not realise about the value of something being printed with this method or how it could be more than just what it is?
I think this current generation’s definition of letterpress printing is that it’s this hip printing process that uses thick paper stock with a tactile finishing. Still, the fact is that this trendy finishing only happened 20 to 30 odd years ago. The past 580 years of letterpress printing were all about achieving a kiss impression. For example, if you go to the library, most of the collections before the seventies were all letterpressed.

Do you feel any tactile touch to it? Most don’t realise that printing is about readability, practicality, efficiency, and most importantly, all about the content.

Traditionally, printing is the process but in today’s times, contemporary letterpress printing makes printing the product itself. That’s the most difficult concept to educate the public as this definition has already been rooted in our society.

 

 

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On Typesettingsg’s website, it was written that several newspapers — Singapore Chronicle in 1824, Tifang Jih Pao in 1845, and Chermin Mata in 1858 — used letterpress printing. How customisable were the machines?
Most printing during the 19th century was done with the letterpress printing process that involved movable types and printing blocks. There is a wide range of printing presses but it’s most likely that only a few types were present in Singapore during this period such as the wooden common presses when first started, and likely, some iron common presses that emerged from the mid-19’th century onward.

Some graphical content was printed with another type of printing method in Singapore known as lithography printing with limestone which emerged in the late 19’th century.

Have you met any letterpress experts besides yourself or people who worked in publishing companies that used them?
Printing is a huge industry in Singapore. Most old printers have experienced this era in Singapore and I have chatted with many older ones here or overseas when I attend printing conferences. There are still many old shops around Singapore that are still printing with the printing press that prints our daily consumable paper products. The printing method never really disappeared as they are in the industrial area behind closed doors.

 

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What moved you to start Typesettingsg and what were you doing before?
I was in a signage design consultant company as their studio manager before I started Typesettingsg. One of the key reasons was the accumulation of the printing presses and types I had at home which grew and occupied much of the space I had. Hence, the idea of a print shop to conduct workshops came to me before starting Typesettingsg.

As the studio celebrates its eighth birthday this year, what were some highs and lows you experienced?
The studio was supposed to close in 2016 and that has occurred many times throughout the years. Operating a studio with this direction in education and heritage will, and by right, not exist in Singapore but Typesettingsg has survived even with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Preservation Of Letterpress Printing by Typesettingsg's Yao YuI read that Johannes Gutenberg developed printing in the West to bring books to the common people of the world. What is your motive behind Typesettingsg then? Is it hard to uphold the integrity of the art form versus achieving commercialisation?
I think that’s another value that our current generation tends to beautify or justify on behalf of the old. Letterpress printing is a commercial printing method for books and newspapers and the “artistic” part of it was a luxury to most back then.

It was never an art form or a craft for most printers, to begin with. It was a printing process to print books to survive. The studio perspective is on the history, the heritage, and the passing down of the process to those who are interested to know.

 

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Sounds like my generation seems to not realise that letterpress printing is really what it is: a job…
I think most think of letterpress printing this way due to the reconstructed interpretation or stories on social media that make us appreciate or feel that letterpress printing is all about the craftsmanship, the “artistic”, and the romantic “kiss” impression. The fact is all these are just part of the job scope where you have to ensure that everything prints what it’s meant to.

Then again, there is a good portion of the printings that prints badly with ink fading, bites, misalignment or contains tons of spelling mistakes.

With the workshops, I am assuming that three hours is not enough time but do you see workshop goers returning to learn more?
A big portion of the workshop is an introduction to the students and some do come back for other sessions to create their cards. Many are actually from abroad that drop by to learn the craft and they form quite a big percentage of students.

 

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Would you say then that you’ve nurtured or are nurturing a new generation of letterpress printing enthusiasts?
I would say that I share the story of this form of printing or pass down another perspective on it to a younger audience. Most who attend the workshop are just curious about it and to date, I have not met anyone truly interested that will come back to ask more questions or do their research in this area. I do have many overseas students who wanted to set up a print shop in their own country and have no idea what is this form of printing and where to get the resources.

They attend my workshop and a few eventually started their own setup but most eventually realise that it’s extremely hard to source resources in their region and gave up eventually.

Would you also say that there is a specific group of people that gravitates towards this form?
There is a big community on letterpress printing in the west that includes type foundries, private presses, printing museums, researchers, hobbyists, and design schools that still have the setup. Asia has started to pick up on the heritage in recent years, such as forming the IAPM international association of printing museums in Cheongju city in Korea and other printing museums in bigger Asian countries.


How did you begin your collection of printing heritage materials? What is the rarest item the studio houses and what has the most sentimental value to you?
I was not aware of the local printing history when I first started and did my research and explored some of the old print or heritage shops. One of the most interesting items I have purchased is a specimen book printed with a full set of Chinese characters. To my understanding, the book might have been used as a reference for the actual typecase. It’s one of its kind as it was likely printed by the worker for his own usage.

The specimen book was from an antique heritage shop where its owner happened to be a design graduate. He has been through the letterpress printing era and he knows the value of it.

If you think of it, the most unassuming things you’ve collected actually hold the most history.
True, a lot of such documentation is self-initiated by the printers themselves. This is why such documents are preserved instead of more mainstream materials.

How is the online store doing?
With the COVID-19 pandemic and the shipping restrictions over the past two years, the shop is quite quiet but with the relaxation of restrictions, the store does have occasional sales.

 

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The studio has produced several cute materials like the “Once Upon a Time” or “1-Metre-Apart” postcards so I’m assuming you must have some sort of observational humour about the world around you.
On the side, I do some writing because as a designer, you’ll have ideas and a method of how you want to express them. Unfortunately, I don’t have time nowadays because it’s all about surviving. I do some interesting things like designing a square acrylic necklace that houses a calendar — its wearer has to unscrew the back and change the date on the front. Designers don’t do practical things.

Guess you designers just really love taking the hard way out…
[laughs] Guess we do.

Once you’re done with this interview with Yao Yu of Typesettingsg, click here to catch up with our August 2022 issue!