Otis Artists’ Book Collection:

(Above and next 3 images below) Crispix by Otis Lab Press ©, 2005. Click image for larger view.

Book opened, showing spine.

Inside spreads with “four-fold throw up format with long stitch into a mini-cereal box cover.”

(Below) Pop-up book (cover) by Carol June Barton ©, 1993. Click image for larger view.

(Below) Inside spread of pop-up book by Carol June Barton ©, 1993.


(Above) Inside spread of pop-up book by Carol June Barton ©, 1993.

(Above) Inside spread of pop-up book by Carol June Barton ©, 1993.


THE OTIS ART INSTITUTE IN CALIFORNIA has put forth an extensive effort to digitize their handmade artists’ books, available for view by designers and artists anywhere. With approximately 2,000 examples of every sort of art book and process imaginable (letterpress, pop-up, xerox, embossing, and every binding technique imaginable) this is a resource to know about for students and professionals alike.

The stated goal of the Otis Artists’ Book Collection was not to create a comprehensive archive, but rather to provide a valuable teaching resource available to art historians, artists, and students. Since the collection is available on only a limited basis, providing access to the books via online images was a priority. With assistance from the Getty Electronic Cataloging Initiative, the Otis Library cataloged the books and and photographed representative portions of each work.

For instant access to the Otis Artists’ Book Collection, click here.

Freaks of Fancy

(Above) Cover of book, The Handy Book of Artistic Printing, published by Princeton Architectural Press, by Doug Clouse and Angela Voulangas.

(Above) Liberty Machine Works, advertisement, 1888.

(Above) Trade card of J. F. Earhart, 1883, employing elaborate color effects.

Click any image for larger view.

(Above) This 1881 cover of The American Model Printer most likely involved fitting together hundreds of individual pieces of type.

IN THE EARLY TO MID-1990s, WHEN THE MAC COMPUTER WAS GROWING UP AND DESIGN APPLICATIONS like Adobe Illustrator was gaining more users with strong creative proficiencies, I saw designers pushing the envelope of their design by building imagery (at times) with extraordinary complexity. The new technology was allowing them to flex their creative muscles, with instant drop shadows, backgrounds of .25 ruled lines stepped and repeated to create marvelous logos and magazine headlines. Fonts were now digital and plentiful, and I saw designers falling in love with the art of decoration. Many designs, which I still remember, were absolutely beautiful with Photoshop blends and other effects at work. I think all of us at the time, were mesmerized with our new found abilities for intricate and elaborate typographic fancies.

Now let’s go back in time 110 years or so. It’s 1892 and letterpress printers, engravers and lithographers of the day were going through their own new design discovery. It wasn’t so much a discovery gained from new technology but a creative challenge to the traditional staid design of the day. What the public began to see in books, on cabinet card backs, business cards and other printed material were intricate and elaborate design where quirky type, ornament of all kinds, corner frills and border embellishments were the norm. Like many design fads we have seen come and go just in the last 50 years of our time, it wasn’t long before most of the lithographers and engravers of the day had jumped on the “freaks of fancy” bandwagon.

Graphic designer Doug Clouse and freelance writer/designer Angela Voulangas have teamed up to present a very solid history of this period of design in the late nineteenth century. Packed with great period designs (some of which are showcased for you above) and solid scholarship, this 224-page book by Princeton Architectural Press should be on the shelf of any designer, library or bibliophile.

Doug Clouse is a graphic designer. A graduate of the Bard Graduate Center in New York, where he studied the history of typography, he teaches graphic design and prints on nineteenth-century treadle-powered presses whenever possible.

Angela Voulangas is a freelance writer and designer. Her love of New York City history and nineteenth-century estoerica have lead her to work for institutions as the New-York Historical Society, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and the New York Public Library.

Handy Book of Artistic Printing, The: Collection of Letterpress Examples with Specimens of Type, Ornament, Corner Fills, Borders, Twisters, Wrinklers, and other Freaks of Fancy.

Doug Clouse, Angela Voulangas

ISBN 9781568987057
8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm), Paperback , 224 pages
185 color illustrations; 12 b/w illustrations

In print (publication date 5/30/2009) A PAPress publication; Rights: World; (1652.0)

Also available on Amazon.

Wrong Turn Yields Highlight of Day

(Above) Hammerpress, at 110 S.W. Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64108
(Above) L.to R.: Shari Bussmann, Paul Bussmann, Teenuh Foster, Bobby Howsare (behind desk) and Brady Vest, owner of Hammerpress.
(Above) Brady talks about his letterpress studio.
(Above) Paul Bussmann, principal of Paul Bussmann LLC, a design boutique in St. Louis, presents for the camera a sweet poster by Hammerpress.
(Above) An inside view of the working shop, with drawers and cabinets full of lead type.
(Above) Stacks of letterpress letters and wood blocks sit at the ready.
(Above) Every nook and cranny at Hammerpress was a photo op for me. I loved it!
(Above) Brady discussing a labor of love—a book project he did with a friend. It was a museum-worthy result.
(Above) A wall of snapshots was an unexpected surprise.
(Above) A Heidelberg press awaits Monday labor.
(Above) A typographic wedding invitation on display.
(Above) Here is a hand-calligraphied envelope by Betsy Dunlap.
(Above) Detail of above.

SO, HERE WE ALL ARE, the four of us, (Paul Bussmann and his wife Shari, my wife Teenuh Foster and myself) leaving Saturday morning from Kansas City, when we miss our turn for the interstate. This was one of many wrong turns that entire trip so by this point we were punch drunk from turning left when we should have turned right. Seeing our exit too late to respond we found ourselves on S.W. Boulevard heading in some direction I couldn’t say. Suddenly our humorous malaise was broken by Paul who shouted “Whoa-whoa-whoa... HOLD THE DANGED BOAT! SHARI, turn around!!! A letterpress shop! Look at THAT! I want to see that!” [Paul can spot a letterpress shop from a mile away.]

Quick as a whip, Shari made a quick left and into a parking spot like it was meant to be. Off we went, led by Paul, who was the original eagle eye and now our guide, and the others, followed in the rear by me, skipping and hopping along with my newly banged up ligament-torn leg—which added at least some humor to our sad journey for the funeral of our friend, Dave Holt.

Turns out the shop was called Hammerpress and was founded in 1994 by Brady Vest, who was kind enough to let us run rampant through the shop like children on a sugar high. “Hey Paul... over here!” was a common whispered shout.. or “Fos-ter... check THIS out!”

The shop was just so genuine and real, all of us could feel the high degree of creativity that went into it’s creation and everyday work. Everything about the place felt right—from the working Vandercook press to the lead type to the make-ready sheets piled high to the old typewriters and other cool stuff too numerous to mention. We left feeling we had discovered something rather extraordinary.

You certainly do not have to live in Kansas City to have Brady Vest and Hammerpress do your next letterpress project. I know you are thinking about it—so pick up the phone and call him at 816.421.1929.