WHAT IS THIS?

A museum of typography and print?

So what is this? It started out as a printshop in my small garage at home but has now progressed somewhat. Kirkcudbright Vintage Printworks is about the process, it's about the history, it's about preservation of both physical machines and typography objects. It's also about the preservation of the techniques that are used in all works of typography. I am a member of the Printing Historical Society and the Heritage Crafts Association.

It may have started in the garage but I've actually had a lifelong interest in combining images with the printed word and I have always enjoyed the use of visual language as a form of art. In particular, I like languages that use pictorial elements, iconography and glyphs. I'm a big fan of Egyptian Hieroglyphs and have a degree in Ancient Egyptian Grammar. I also love history and have a master's degree in Museum Studies so this is a logical pairing. My career started in the maintenance and repair of reprographic equipment, then graphic design, website design and application development. It is this background and a love of drawing and being creative that has led me to wanting a physical space where I could create works using traditional typography methods.

This is not technically a museum but there are important elements of history and preservation here. Nothing in the studio is electrical, everything is physical and manually operated. There is a tactile history to most things in the studio, the items here have led a life already and wear the scars of their industrial use.



I do not aim for perfection in my work! No two prints are exactly the same and I embrace the differences. No print is perfect and this is intentional, the dents and scratches in the vintage wooden type add a unique feel to each print. This is the mantra of my studio... "This is art, not reprographics!"

Just to reiterate, this is not a commercial print shop but a studio where I will be creating individual short run and one off prints that use an elements of letterpress, paper making and ink making. I will also be giving short talks and running interesting hands-on workshops. To sum up Kirkcudbright Vintage Printworks is;