Letterpress poster in 70×100cm printed from traditional wood type (Dalmazia Serie C by Xilografia Italiana) in 50 Cicero (225 mm). Since I only have the set in uppercase, it is a bit hard to identify. Oh boy, how I would love these lower case sorts! But since I bought it from Italy, it makes sense that is by Xilografia Italiana.

The smaller written info cast from hot-metal is Ludlow Condensed Gothic. And all over and between are many historic and a few new photo plates. 

Made for Salomon Départ, Annecy. In celebration of “Post Park Skiing”, these kids really ski everything. ♥

Letterpress printed poster for Typographic Printing Program 2026. Printed from hand-cut linoleum (LL Ruder Plakat), the first letter of the first line starts in its original shape and gradually morphs into the last letter of the last line, which is totally deformed.

The larger white information is set in Helvetica bold 72pt, from traditional metal type. Since the interweaving lines on the smaller size (24pt) are very labour-intensive to set in hand-set metal type, these blocks have been cast from Ludlow's Record Gothic bold in 24pt.

Record Gothic has often been referred by old printers as Ludlow Helvetica because of their similarities. In this case, since there is no capital R and no numbers on the small copy of this poster, it is really hard to tell the difference between the two faces. This made the production much easier than setting the smaller blocks from hand-set type.

68.7×99.7cm letterpress printed poster

Exhibition poster announcing a project that was working with LEGO® bricks to letterpress print letterforms by different typedesigners and graphic designers from many places around the globe.

The posters have also been letterpress printed from a total of 5,469 pieces of 1×1 LEGO bricks. The large outline type with the checkerboard gloss is a pixelated form of Univers 93 Extra Black Extended. The main info has been cast from Ludlow hot metal slugs in Record Gothic Bold Extended and the small bottom line was set in Record Gothic Bold.

A candle celebrating the 16th studio anniversary and inviting to the open day 2025. 70×100cm letterpress hand-printed from hand-cut linoleum for the gradients and the main info layer.

The typeface used on this poster is Marko, issued by Schriftgiesserei Brüder Butter by 1913. It has been hand-cut from linoleum, so it really is just a shaky interpretation of the original typeface.

70×100cm poster letterpress printed from 50 different wood blocks

This one is not so heavy on type, but nevertheless a rare contemporary use of Ludlow’s Record Gothic Bold Extended. The fifty wood blocks have been cut and sanded to type height to be letterpress printed on the poster. The type (main info and bottom note) has been cast from Ludlow hot metal slugs and printed in a separate pass.

Final letterpress printed poster, 89.5×128 cm, 2025

A visual cut-up between a poster of Karl Bickel (Alter/Invalidität, 1925) and Dafi Kühne (Wilkommen, 2018) for an exhibition on a juxtaposition of the two different approaches and contexts.

The cut-up poster has been letterpress printed from etched and hand-cut linoleum to reproduce mainly the complicated Bickel hand – which was originally printed in stone lithography.

Watch the production video for the documentation of the process:

Original poster #1, Alter/Invalidität by Karl Bickel, 89.5×128 cm, stone lithography from 1925

Original poster #2, Welcome! by Dafi Kühne. 64×88cm, letterpress print, 2018

Letterpress printed advertisement poster and animation series for Typographic-Printing-Program.com.

The posters have been printed from traditional wood type and additional pantograph-cut pear wood sorts of Plakatschrift Didot for the larger sizes (“RRRrrriing”, “Kerning Depression?”, “Sans or Serif?”, and “Legibility Emergency?”), traditional plastic poster type and additional laser-cut acrylic glass sorts also of Plakatschrift Didot for the secondary information (“Call the typographic helpline …”) as well as some Ludlow slugs of Gothic Condensed No. 2 for the smallest size and a piece of hand-cut linoleum for the phone.

The animations have been produced from photographic reproductions of the printed posters.

Program poster for Tunnel, a club in Glarus, Switzerland. Letterpress printed in six printing passes from hand-cut linoleum and cast Ludlow slugs.

The round overlapping “t-u-n-n-e-l” words (patterned after Futura Condensed) have been overprinted in five passes from hand-cut linoleum.

The small copy (in 48pt Gothic Condensed No. 2) has been cast manually from Ludlow hot metal slugs and printed in a separate printing pass.

Letterpress-printed poster, 70×100cm

Letterpress-printed poster for this year’s Handpressenmesse (“hand press fair”) in Frauenfeld, Switzerland. Typeset with plastic poster type of Didot Plakat a.k.a. Plakatschrift Didot—the analog predecessor of Lineto’s Ruder Plakat—distributed by the type foundry Neue Didot from Muttenz, Switzerland.

Metal type signature uses Ludlow Condensed Gothic in 6pt.

Watch the production video:

Physical composition of Didot Plakat in 6 Cicero and 10 Cicero. The light brown characters are laser-cut replacements from MDF, the white em-dash is cut from white plastic.

Program poster for Tunnel, a club in Glarus, Switzerland. Letterpress printed from hand-cut linoleum and cast Ludlow slugs.

The main overlapping “t-u-n-n-e-l” letters (patterned after Univers 85) have been printed from two blocks of hand-cut linoleum that have been alternatingly exchanged on the press and reduced between each printing pass.

The small copy (in 48pt Ludlow Condensed Gothic No. 2) has been cast manually from Ludlow hot metal slugs and overprinted in four passes to get the full opacity.

Letterpress printed Weltformat poster (89.5×128 cm / 35.2×50.4 in) produced in 13 printing passes from hand-cut linoleum and a complicated large format linoleum etching. Watch the video.

The fonts in use are a completely distorted LL Ruder Plakat by Lineto for the three words “Werk-Statt-Schau” and Messina Sans by Luzi Type for the smaller information and the museum logo. Through the etching process, there is not much left from the original Ruder Plakat face… Also the smaller info and the logo in the top left corner are hand-cut linoleum, which is not an absolutely accurate reproduction of the font.

Letterpress exhibition poster for 100 posters for the small Swiss town Näfels.

All the lines have been hand-cast in 72pt Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed on the Ludlow hot-metal caster. In the production video you see the process from 1:32 min. After proofing the slugs, each word had to be carefully kerned. The process of negative kerning physical type is called mortising and is done with a trim saw. (See the video at 2:14min). Umlauts Ä, Ö and Ü have been physically put together with diacritical marks (German: Umlautpunkte) from 72P. Helvetica metal type. (Does this even count as a use? haha!)

Then the lockup of each word is done with little express fix binders (2.44 min) that hold the slugs and the diacritical marks together with some magnets for easy positioning on the printing press (3:23 min).

If anybody is asking why the point size of the Ludlow Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed is abbreviated with pt and the size Helvetica is 72P. – generally the Ludlow caster can cast either slug width 6pt or 12pt Pica Points or 6P. or 12P. Since this composition has been produced in Europe in Didot points, the Ludlow slugs are cast in Didot points too. But the actual faces of any Ludlow matrices are always cut in Pica Points, since they have been produced in the USA. So the size of Ludlow faces are always in Pica (pt), whilst the slugs in this case as well as the diacritical marks of Helvetica are set in Didot (P.).

Semester lecture program for Rice Architecture—the smallest professional degree program situated within a top research university in Houston, Texas. Letterpress printed from hand-cut linoleum, hand set wood type and freshly cast Ludlow hot metal slugs.

For you type geeks: the words “collective conversation” have been printed from an old set of wood type of from Xilografia Italiana called Treviso in 25 Cicero.

It is also noteable that the size 25 Cicero is very typical for Italy, but not very common in Switzerland or Germany. In Switzerland and Germany, sizes for poster type are 6C, 8C, 10C, 12C, 16C, 20C, 24C… Which makes sense with the duocecimal system of points (fractions of 12). Once a typesetter gets used to it, it is a very practical system since not only the physical body sizes of type, but also the sizes of the physical spacing material and furniture to fill up the non-printing parts of a lock-up will work together nicely in these fractions of 12. Also all sizes come in straight numbers. In Italy however, the system of larger type and furniture is organized differently. Anything larger than 10C is 15C, 20C, 25C, 30C…

Two sizes of letterpress printed posters from the same lino-cuts, with the concert program of Tunnel, a club in Glarus, Switzerland. The smaller posters (35×50 cm) are sections from the larger formats (70×100 cm).

The letters “t-u-n-n-e-l” have been printed from an old set of Como in original wood type from Xilografia Italiana. Then the scans of these letters have been used to scale up and hand-cut blocks of linoleum for the final poster production.

Like on all posters from the “Tunnel Series”, the small event information has been cast from Ludlow Condensed Gothic No. 2 mats and printed from the cast hot-metal slugs.

Specimen for Como

Letterpress printed poster, 64×97.6cm, on mirror coat paper

Letterpress printed poster for Typographic Printing Program 2024. Printed from hand carved linoleum (squares and larger type) and freshly cast Ludlow hot metal slugs (tiny 6pt type).

All lines on this poster are dead-straight. The morphing of the straight lines happens by the strategic placement of the positive and negative letterforms. It is crucial to have one letterform in mostly every corner of the grid. So I needed a total 34 words with between 9 and 13 letters each. That’s one example why it is impossible to design a good poster with content that is not fitting the visual concept—and vice versa. They go hand in hand.

Format: 64×97.6cm
Paper: Heavymetal, 170g/m²
Edition: 300 letterpress printed posters

Process of cutting the linoleum for printing. Though all the lines of the checkerboard are straight, they already appear bent.

Printing process of the hand-cut linoleum on a letterpress proof press

Two sizes of letterpress printed posters from the same lino-cuts, with the upcoming program of Tunnel, a club in Glarus, Switzerland. The smaller posters (35×50 cm) are sections from the larger formats (70×100 cm).

The letters T-U-N-N-E-L have been created by casting and letterpress proofing 144pt Ludlow mats of Karnak Bold Condensed. This is a rare face in this size and I definitely wanted to use it. With the scans of these letters, I produced scaled up, hand-cut, movable linocut letters that could then be printed on the large posters. Since freshly cut letters are individual movable sorts, the letters have been printed line by line with a split fountain, and moved down continuously. Watch the video!

The small event information has been cast from Ludlow Condensed Gothic No. 2 mats and printed from the cast hot-metal slugs.

The small posters (35×50cm), which are sections from the large posters...

Small posters (35×50cm)

Small posters and folded small posters

Upper half of the large posters

Lower half of the large posters

Detail of the large posters

Detail of the large posters

Semester lecture program for Rice Architecture—the smallest professional degree program situated within a top research university in Houston, Texas. Letterpress printed from hand-cut linoleum and freshly cast Ludlow hot metal slugs. And also check out the custom made envelopes!

A1 poster

Letterpress printed poster for an architecture conference on the topic of “Daylight”. Printed in two versions (A1 and A0 format) with laser-cut MDF and hand-set metal and wood type.

And if you’re a production nerd like me: check out the gradients in the video and how they’re printed against the printing direction! They’re made in two steps: inking in the roller direction, then printing in a 90° rotation. Yes yes, we know all the magic!

Gradients on the laser-cut LL Atomgrad letters

Helvetica Bold (photopolymer plate)

Helvetica Plakat (wood type)

Salon Antiqua, hand-set 4P. metal type,

Exhibition posters for a poster show at Museum für Druckkunst in Leipzig, Germany. Letterpress printed in 16 runs, with hand-cut linoleum, hand-set metal type and a photopolymer plate. Nine of these runs are printed with splitf ountains.

The large type in the shape of a question mark is a modified (rounded) version of LL Ruder Plakat, hand-cut in linoleum. The smaller type is hand-set metal type (Anzeigen-Grotesk).

The larger point size of Anzeigen-Grotesk is set in metal type, the smaller size is set digitally and printed with a photopolymer plate

Tag line in Akzidenz-Grotesk (metal type)

Metal type lockup for the tag-line

Program poster for Tunnel, a club in Glarus, Switzerland. Letterpress printed from hand-cut linoleum, cast Ludlow slugs (Ludlow Condensed Gothic) and wood type (Meier-Schrift).

In the video you see that with the same printing elements, a total of three program posters for in two sizes have been produced. A tricky system to be able to print two sizes from the same printing formes. Firstly, the split-fountains have been printed on large sheets for both the small and the large posters. Then the sheets for the small posters got cut in half to be overprinted with just the upper half of the linoleum cut. Then they got cut in half again to be finished on a smaller press. The large versions stayed uncut and got finished on the large press, printed with the same hand-cut linoleum block. Watch the whole video, you’ll figure it out!