Paper and Ink

I grew up with paper and ink.

I know we all do in this day and age, but, my Dad was a printer and my Grandfather before him and my Great Grandfather before both of them.  Although I didn't follow in his footsteps, I did work for a printers for a few years in their paper warehouse.

Ink in our blood.

My Dad printed the old way.  Trays of metal type that he would set my hand in metal frames.  My Dad reads back to front and upside down as a matter of course.  The forms would be placed in his two old Heidelberg presses.  My Dad had very long arms and he always seemed to be all over it like a gibbon!  The whirling of arms with suction cups.  The moving of the form on to the paper.  

The machines sang and we danced.  

My Dad is long since retired and we didn't have video capturing phones back then.  I wish we had video of those presses at work because they were magic but in this day of youtube other people do.  Unfortunately they seem to like putting music over the presses working....  Except this one....  My Dad would take the paper and it would just do what he wanted instantly.  A big stack would be perfectly lined up in seconds.

Magic in our fingers.

He had a guillotine, which obviously we were not allowed to near.  Guards would spring in to place as a huge shiny silver blade effortlessly slid in to a stack of paper.  He would put all the offcuts in to sacks to be sent off for recycling as the paper industry has always done this.  I would rifle through for interesting colour paper and take it home for projects.  I made the paper express the things I imagined and it willingly helped my dreams take shape.

The potential for transformation.

I had to opportunity to visit a paper factory growing up in the Lake District with my Dad and it was amazing to see the size of those reels.  Working in the warehouse later on, I saw them stacked in towers far above my head.  We would have to count them and would squeeze between them like some strange tree trunks in a peculiar forest.

Imagination taking flight.

People all over the world take blank pieces of paper and make it other.  Origami and calligraphy.  People bind the sheets in to books and collect them together in to libraries.  I love seeing pictures of libraries from around the world, holding the knowledge and dreams of a species.   Old books have a special smell and feel.  You walk in to an old book shop and the sense of potential is all around, what path will I choose to walk today?

Doorways to a million million worlds.

It's computerised these days, designs downloaded to giant photocopiers that don't have that paper and hot ink smell.  There are people everywhere that keep the paper and ink love alive though.  Small businesses, craftspeople, artisans.  But designers still design from a special place, even if they use computers.  Every typeface ever used has been designed...

My soul is paper.

I have collected some images on pinterest...