Founded by Bruce Smith & Yoshiko Yamamoto, we are a small publishing house producing books and other works of interest to those concerned with the Arts and Crafts movement. All the publications of The Arts and Crafts Press are letterpress printed and bound by hand.  The Press also produces greeting cards and artworks that are letterpress printed from hand cut blocks inspired by the turn-of-the-century movement.

What is Letterpress printing?
Letterpress printing is a relief print process. The printed image is produced by a raised surface (lead type for example) being inked and then impressed onto a sheet of paper. These raised surfaces have historically been anything from woodcuts to wood engravings, from linocuts to type faces. Over the past several years, a new type of plate made from photopolymer have contributed to revival in letterpress printing.

Letterpress printing is the oldest form of printing. It produces a strong, sharp outline to the individual letters and images printed. As compared to offset lithography and computer laser printing, letterpress printed surfaces are in relief so that a slight indentation can usually be seen, if not felt, on the paper.

At The Arts & Crafts Press
The Press uses five different ways of printing: (1) Our own hands wielding a baren; (2) An Reliance iron handpress, circa 1860; (3) A Colts Armory Press, 1904; (4) A Chandler & Price Price, about 1915; and (5) A Vandercook Model 4, circa 1940. Since each color on every piece of paper printed has to be hand feed into the press being used, our production is limited.

The Paper we use
The earliest paper is said to have been made in China from using silk in about 200 BC. The early papers made in Europe were primarily made from raw materials such as linen and cotton rags that gave strength and permanence to the paper. As the industrialization took over the paper industry in the late nineteenth century, wood pulp became the main material for paper creating a weaker paper which would not have the lasting quality of the linen and cotton made paper.

The paper used at The Arts and Crafts Press is acid-free and, depending upon the project, can be handmade, mouldmade, or machine made. Handmade paper is literally made by hand artisans using a mould to scoop up from a vat water with a beaten pulp mixture which, when dried, forms the paper. Both mouldmade paper and machinemade paper are made by machine. The machine used for mouldmade paper is based on a cylinder-mould that allows a faster production of paper using high quality paper like the handmade. Due to its mechanized motion, the mouldmade paper is more even and regular in character than the handmade. The machine-made paper is mostly made of wood fibre, but some companies offer them with cotton rags also.

Binding and folding
We bind our magazine and our books with a needle and thread, and our hands. This is partly because we enjoy working with our hands but also because it allows us to create books that are unlike many commercially produced books with their mechanical standards and routine appearance.