100 Plakate für Näfels poster

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.).