Tag Archives: Printing

What makes a book a book

Posted on August 25, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

What makes a book a book? Is it just anything that stores and communicates information? Or does it have to do with paper, binding, font, ink, its weight in your hands, the smell of the pages? To answer these questions, … Continue reading →

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History of Printing

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

 

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Who Made That

Posted on August 31, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Many years ago, as I was watching one of my all time favorite films Pulp Fiction, I noticed that many of the charcters were smoking a peculiar brand of cigarette called Red Apple. For a moment I wondered who created the prop packaging and … Continue reading →

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There is no telling where time is

Posted on September 28, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

This piece is from former British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes’s collection of poems Earth Dances, with original linocuts by British artist R. J. Lloyd and printed in 1994 in an edition of 250 copies signed by the poet and artist in 18 point Bembo and Bodoni on … Continue reading →

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Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day

Posted on September 20, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Happy Monday! The floriated initial M in the above text comes from the 16th century alchemical book Della tramutatione metallica sogni tre by Gio. Battista Nazari Bresciano. Floriated, or decorative, initials are common in antiquarian books. Typically new sections of … Continue reading →

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A Very Special Atlas

Posted on August 26, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

The Atlas of the United States Printed for the Use of the Blind was published in 1837 for children at the New England Institute for the Education of the Blind in Boston. The entire volume was printed without ink, the text … Continue reading →

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Climate Crisis

Posted on April 17, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Finland’s Helsingin Sanomat newspaper has created a free and downloadable variable font that aims to make the urgency of climate change tangible by mirroring the declining amount of Arctic sea ice in its disappearing letterforms. While a regular typeface has … Continue reading →

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True Grit

Posted on April 2, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

By now, regular visitors to TBTP are well aware of my fascination with all forms of printing and printmaking. So it will be no surprise that I was impressed by this brilliant, short demonstration of stone lithography. In the video … Continue reading →

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Sea of Cortez

Posted on December 8, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

We know it as the Gulf of California, but in 1940 it was called the Sea of Cortez. In that year, the novelist John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts  traveled there to research a book project on the region’s … Continue reading →

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Get Free Art Books

Posted on September 18, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

Quarantine Public Library is a brilliant online publisher of free short downloadable books created by independent writers, photographers, and artists. The diminutive books are designed to be printed on one sheet of paper, then folded into a zine-style book. The … Continue reading →

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