The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The above sentence took a few of seconds to type out, and wouldn’t take much longer to print. Control P; Return – easy.

Rewind a hundred years or so and it wouldn’t be such a care-free process. A visit to St Bride Printing Library in Fleet Street got me hooked on the old method of typesetting; composing layouts using metal type and printing them using a letterpress.

The skill and dexterity that was needed to produce the simplest of things was fascinating. By comparison, the art of printing as we know it today is such a straightforward and accessible process. Something that takes hours to produce using letterpress, can be done in a matter of seconds with a computer.

I was intrigued to find out how digital typesetting compares in technique to the handling of physical type as a way of composing text. So my curiosity got the better of me and led to the purchase of a 1960′s Adana press, along with a shed-load of hot metal type to go with it.

A few hours into my first printing attempt, it was clear I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I suddenly found typesetting to be a truly painstaking process – having to compose each individual character upside down and back-to-front to form words, sentences and paragraphs – with mistakes so easily made.

Despite the fact that letterpress is an outdated medium; as an educational tool it gives designers the knowledge of the fundamental basics of good typography. It’s the so-called minor details of typesetting that can have a huge affect on the legibility of a sentence or paragraph. Details such as leading and tracking are (more often than not) forgotten, ignored, or simply unknown to many designers in the digital age. Whereas with letterpress, these details are so significant to the outcome of a piece of design.

After a couple of weeks slaving over the press, I found the whole process became quite inspirational. It wasn’t just about handling the type, but how it informs the way in which you approach everything from type to layout. As letterpress is so laborious and time consuming, I found myself making conscious design decisions prompted by a concrete understanding that each minute decision affects the outcome.

There is no denying the fact that digital technology has revolutionised the way in which graphic designers produce their work – speed, creative freedom, and accurate print reproduction being the major advantages. But I believe there is a case for the letterpress process to continue to be practiced, especially in education. The (eventual) simplicity and technologically uncomplicated nature of the process means that it is a fantastic way to learn the basic rules of typography and design. And of course, once you master the rules, you are free to break them and produce some truly wonderful work. All hail the mighty letterpress!