Air and space bookworks
Literature and poetry based bookworks
Typography and music bookworks

At Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, students study the finer points of composition, typographic design, and presswork on the hand-operated flatbed cylinder printing press. The Press has 2400+ cases of American and European metal and wood type and nine presses (Heidelberg, C&P, Vandercook). Students explore handset metal-type composition techniques and standards (and their relation to computer-set digital type), as well as the integration of text and image. While producing several supervised projects, students are exposed to printing from metal type and photopolymer plates. As part of the process editioned books are produced in which each student contributes one page on a general theme.

The Press has published over 40 limited edition student collaborative books.

For work by the Director, Gloria Kondrup, see Vero Press

curiositas
The Strange The Rare The Novel
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2008. Edition of 35.

11 x 13.5"; 20 loose pages. Designed and illustrated by students at Archetype Press at Art Center College of Design. Letterpress printed on Domestic Etching using Vandercook 4 Proof Presses. Type: foundry metal, wood type, linoleum cuts, photopolymer plates. Housed in cloth-covered clamshell box.

Students created their own curiosities of nature: "Once the JACKASS LIBERALIS protected everyone from the lions and the bears and the war-mongering mongers. But one day the FUNDAMENTAL NEOCONSERVITUS came along…."
$250 (Four copies remaining)

NOTORIOUS EX LIBRIS
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2008. Edition of 50.

8.4 x 11"; an unbound portfolio of 22 landscape broadsides (title, 20 student pieces, and colophon) each folded once to create a 2-page spread. Designed, illustrated, and letterpress printed by students at Archetype Press, Art Center College of Design. Printed using foundry metal and wood type, linoleum cuts, and photopolymer plates on Domestic Etching and French Construction papers. Folded stiff wraps of Rives BFK. Housed in a black slipcase.

The notorious from Little Red Riding Hood to Madonna become fodder for Art Center College of Design students.
$195

ISSUES
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2006. Edition of 35.

8.25 x 10.5"; 59 pages. Printed letterpress on 100% hemp paper. Designed and letterpress printed by students at Archetype Press, Art Center College of Design, using foundry metal and wood type, photopolymer plates, linoleum cuts, and silk screens. Stitched binding with external tapes over gauze-like material.

Gloria Kondrup, introduction: "Our awareness of the limitations and frailty of the environment is perhaps a reaction to the biological as well as psychological crisis of living in a world where the man-made environment has become increasingly destructive. …A continuing discourse of environmentalism can perhaps reconnect the human spirit to the natural universe, and can create a voice, small or large, that addresses issues of consequence."

The issues: Aid to Africa; Communication, or lack thereof; Abortion Rights; Pollution; Genocide; Population Growth; Loss of Wetlands.
$100

Pasadena
Introduction by Bill Bogaard
Printed and designed by Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2006. Standard edition of 75; Deluxe edition of 26.

12.25 x 9.4"; 39 leaves. Letterpress printed. Text printed using hand-set foundry metal type and wood type on Legion Domestic Etching paper. Illustrations printed on handmade Japanese Mulberry paper using linoleum blocks and photopolymer plates. Handbound by Alice Vaughan in brown cloth with foil-stamped title on spine. Designed and printed by students at Art Center College of Design.

Introduction, Bill Bogaard, Mayor of Pasadena, 2006: "Pasadena is one of the most recognized cities in America, but one of the least understood... .The City does have what can only be called elegant institutions and structures... . The students' creative impressions of Pasadena reflected in this book help us better understand the City... ."

Among items represented typographically: Colorado St. Bridge; Rose Parade; Rose Court; Suicide Bridge; Pacific Asia Museum; and the Tuesday Night Music Club.
$150 - Standard
$250 - Deluxe, slipcased

Thing-a-ma-jigs
300 Years of American Invention
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2005. Edition of 75.

12.75 x 10.5"; 45 leaves. Printed letterpress using metal foundry type, wood type, linoleum blocks, laser-cut masonite, and digital polymer plates. Printed on Domestic Etching paper. Bound in exposed binding board with red cloth spine. Letterpressed title on front board.

In honor of Benjamin Franklin, inventor of bifocal glasses, the lightening rod, the Franklin stove, the glass armonica, etcetera, thirty-seven inventors or inventions are presented typographically – from barbed wire to bubblegum.
$175

A Children's Book of Symbols
By Students, Art Center College of Design
1995. Edition of 75.

7.75 x 4.875”; 60 pages including blank sheets. Printed on one side only. Printed in 52 colors on Mohawk Superfine 80# letterpress paper using foundry and wood types and polymer plates. Uses Mohawk superfine with red Japanese interleaving. Hardcover bound with three ribbon bookmark. Bound by Alice Vaughan using red Japanese bookcloth.

A selection of symbols, more or less explained, each presented across a 2-page spread.
$125

Cowboy Poetry
Words of the West
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2009. Edition of 50.

14.5 x 17.75"; 19 broadsides. Text and image created using metal and wood type, silk screening, laser-cut masonite, linoleum blocks, and xerox transfers on recycled chipboard. Loose broadsides housed in single-sheet black paper wrap with grommet binding. Title label on wrapper.

The Art Center College of Design students turn their graphic and typographic talents on Cowboy Poetry. All of the poetry is unattributed.
$175

By Students, Art Center College of Design
2005. Edition of 60.

9.5 x 7.875"; 17 fold out pages plus title page. Printed letterpress on Mohawk Superfine super smooth (classic linen) paper. Bound by Alice Vaughan. Spiral bound and mounted within a flip-open hard cover.

The father of cyberpunk meets letterpress — or is it vice-versa?
$125

Having the Last Word
By Students, Art Center College of Design
2004. Edition of 75.

5.25 x 7.25"; 77 pages printed letterpress on Mohawk Superfine paper. Bound with tan book cloth over boards by Alice Vaughan. Brown foil stamped title. Includes red ribbon marker.

A collection of the last paragraphs, last lines, or last words of a book selected by and presented typographically.
$125

By Students, Art Center College of Design
2004. Edition of 70.

7 x 9"; 46 pages printed on one side only. Letterpress printed on Vandercook proof presses using metal type, wood type, laser-cut masonite blocks, linoleum blocks, silk screens, and photopolymer plates. Text and images printed on Mohawk Superfine paper. A softcover with suede Text, Fabriano Ingres End papers and title label. Letterpressed cover. Perfect bound by Alice Vaughan.

The text for this project produced by the students is based on the 1894, London, private printing of “Phrases and Philosophies” housed in the collections of The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library of UCLA.

From the introduction by Bruce Whiteman, Head Librarian at the Clark Library: “The epigrams in ‘Phrases and Philosophies’ help us to understand why Wilde remains the earliest modern writer whom we still read and value. The emphasis is, finally, on language, in a way that works to keep the majority of Wilde’s epigrams fresh and relevant, although he could not avoid the meretriciousness of sexism and other Victorian failings from time to time. Yet in spite of the occasional groaner among them, Wilde’s epigrams wonderfully retain their power to instruct and to amuse all sorts and ages of person.”
$125

By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2001. Edition of 65.

10.5 x 8.25"; 68 pages. Letterpress printed on Speckletone. Wire bound with black board cover, cloth tape hinge, and printed cover. Hand-bound by Alice Vaughan.

Using foundry type, wood type, linoleum blocks, laser-cut plates, and photopolymer plates, graphic arts students at Art Center College of Design produced this work with the words of Chandler, Gardner, and Mosley. (The last page, however, is a quote from George W. Bush: "We will rid the world of evil-doers.")
$95

CHRONICLE of a DEATH foretold
a TYPOGRAPHIC narrative
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2000. Edition of 65.

11.375 x 17.125"; 30 leaves. Letterpress printed on Vandercook Proof Presses using foundry and wood type, photoengravings, linoleum blocks, die cuts and polymer plates Each page in various colors with two or more runs on Fox River Howard Linen paper. Perfect bound by Alice Vaughan using black linen paper.

Gabriel García Márquez's novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981) recounts a killing in the name of family honor. The luxurious linen paper and its large size make this stand out among Archetype's many publications.
$125

THE LAST BOOK
Literacy, Censorship & the Destruction of Books
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 1999. Edition of 60.

8.375 x 11.375". Printed letterpress in various colors on Vandercook proof presses. Fonts of metal foundry type and digital type in the form of photopolymer relief plates and ink jet printers. Bound in light tan bookcloth. Bound by Alice Vaughan with paper title labels on cover and spine. Two ribbon bookmarks.

Colophon: "The book was completed & published on the eve of the new millennium at 11:59 PM, December 31, 1999 and may well stand as the last published book printed of the Twentieth Century. Hence, the title of the book."

Introduction, Vance Studley: "There is something magical about the idea of a new millennium. The year 2000 has always signified the future of hard to imagine possibilities of other wordily life. And while there is great optimism and anticipation expressed in many of the visual statements, there is also the occasional note of warning and impending chaos that may ensue in a world of ever widening possibilities with respect to freedom of speech. Exhilarating hopes with an air of caution permeate some of these observations which each designer has shaped within the constraints of three-dimensional type all realized by the iron machines known as the letterpress.

"The designers ... have assembled their ideas within the framework of a purely typographic setting based on an understanding of how typography shapes ideas and information in print. Words can be both lyrical and commanding when thoughtfully attuned to concept and the page on which it exists. Emphasis on verbs can be hard or soft to make a point. The contextual message of any display of type can enhance, embellish or even degrade the author's language within the strictures of the page if printed information proves to be accessible or obscure. Therefore, careful consideration of the letterforms and their placement on the page are of utmost concern in the solutions, printed letterpress, forming the subject of this book ..."
$125

The Animals
A Typographic Bestiary
poetry by Richard Grossman
typography by Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 1997. Edition of 55.

7.25 x 10.5"; 31 pages. Letterpress printed using 34 type styles in foundry metal, wood and polymer. 43 custom inks used. Free end pages and pastedowns in white papers. Handbound by Alice Vaughan in cream bookcloth. Ribbon bookmarks. Paper title label on front board.

Introduction: "But in the darkness and remoteness of place, cloistered from prying eyes of those who seek there, what currency is there in those mysterious animals wearing that peculiarly constructed amour or feather or fur? What of hideous vermin and their comely deformity? To what purpose are those aphids, cobra, those ravenous predators and parasites, those mighty horned beetles, the stalwart stag and animals with insatiable appetites? In short, so many and so marvelous are the varieties of divers shapes and kinds on every hand, that we are more tempted to fear than to learn and wonder at these things and meditate heir existence. Is it for the animal's sake or ours, that we shrink from these curious follies? 'What is the expense of fear? (Inspired by St. Bernard of Clairvaux)."
$150

Shaped Poetry
Typographic Explorations of Time and Movement in Poetry
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 1997. Edition of 53.

9.2 x 12.5"; 34 leaves. Printed letterpress using 53 Foundry Metal Fonts and Hamilton Wood Type on Strathmore 24# Text paper. Bound by Alice Vaughan in paper-covered boards with paper title label on front board. Green ribbon bookmark.

AIGA Design Archives: "The book is a concerted effort by student designers to use foundry type to create a purely typographic statement about the essence of a poem and the overall form it assumes. Foundry type and letterpress printing enable the designer to both manually manipulate type and experience letterforms in visual communication."

Introduction: "Each member of the workshop selected an excerpt from a poem having as its basic theme 'a sense of time.' Time can be expressed by movement, the calendar, change, evolution, decay, transfiguration, metamorphosis, permutation, or shift of thematic content. ... "
$150

The Animals
Typographic Excerpts from The Poems
Poetry by Richard Grossman
Typography by Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 1994. Edition of 50.

5.75 x 9.5"; 23 leaves. Letterpress printed. Black pastedowns and free end pages. Bound in bookcloth. Two ribbon bookmarks. Paper title label on cover and spine.

Introduction, Vance Studley: "Literature is replete with references to animals with human attributes; animals transformed into human puppets where the pettiness of current social themes is universalized by being projected onto the animal kingdom. Often, animals become trivialized in the process as they assume roles of human predicament and become mired in the social comedy of life's exigencies. Do animals have an authentic voice unique to their species? Richard Grossman assumes they do and masterfully creates a totally plausible realm where suffering, gluttony, vanity, hope, and the vicissitudes of survival have a finer shade of meaning. his paean to the animal in his book of poetry, The Animals' serves as a basis for the typographic treatments ...

"In accordance with the constraints of space, availability of foundry and wood type the designers whose work appear here are statements about the strength of language. The typewriter gives way to the subtleties of metal type impressed into paper and done so with structure influenced by each designer's search for hidden layers of meaning in typography. Each unit of space and letter has been carefully considered, arranged by hand and printed individually ..."
$125

Created to benefit the Save Walden Woods Project
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 1992. Edition of 125.

9.125 x 12"; 48 leaves. Letterpress printed on Speckletone text paper. Softcover with paper title label.

Introduction: "In support of the national effort to protect and preserve the woods surrounding Walden Pond, students at Art Center College of Design's Archetype Press have created these typographic illustrations of the writings of Henry David Thoreau. The group of 46 graphic design, advertising, and photography students used metal foundry type and wood type from the Archetype Press collection ... to produce letterpress interpretations of Thoreau's essays and short story excerpts. ... The Walden Woods Project was established in the spring of 1990 by recording artist Don Henley. ... to acquire and preserve areas of Walden Woods … listed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of 'America's Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places.'"
$125

The Summer of Love
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2009. Edition of 50.

14. 5 x 17.75; 20 broadsides. Text and image created using metal and wood type, silk screening, laser-cut masonite, linoleum blocks, and xerox transfers on recycled chipboard. Loose broadsides housed in single sheet paper wrap with grommet binding. A large LOVE appears on the warp, two letters per side printed with split fountain technique. Title label on wrapper.

Forty years after Woodstock, students from Art Center College of Design revisit the words and spirit of the Aquarian celebration - Joe Crocker, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and more.
$175

By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2008. Edition of 50.

5.25 x 7.2"; 16 four-page accordion fold pieces, letterpress printed. Frontispiece photograph by Alyssa Stefek. Laid in paper wrapper with leather tie closure, title blind embossed on front.

Graphic design students (at the Art Center College of Design) explored songs from the 1930s, then put them into type. Fifteen tunes from the Depression era are laid out –from blues (I Been Walking on Hastings Street) to upbeat (Happy Days Are Here Again).
$150

Die Zauberflöte
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Magic Flute
A Typographic Opera in Two Acts
as performed by Archetype Press
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2004. Edition of 80.

6.25 x 10"; 176 pages (unpaginated). Letterpress printed using metal type, wood type, laser-cut masonite blocks, linoleum blocks, silk screens, and photopolymer plates. Text and images printed on Mohawk Superfine. End papers of Rossi Italian. Red ribbon page marker. Bound in gold book cloth with black velvet spine. Perfect bound by Alice Vaughan with black foil stamped title.

Art Center College of Design students interpret typographically both acts plus the overture of Die Zauberflöte, Mozart's 1791 opera.

Performance Notes [colophon]: "The libretto used as a reference was the Angel/EMI 1987 recording of The Magic Flute by the Orchestra of the Bavarian State Opera Munich. ..."

Ann Hong, Art Center College of Design student 2004, about her design page: "This is a student collaborative book. The typographic treatment highlights Pamina reflecting her circumstances. The mirrored concept of the playing card motif represents Pamina’s dialogue with her subconscious. The script and red color convey her sensitivity and love for Tamino, and the sharp serif font and black diamond-shaped ornaments signify her logical, but dark side. The two passages can be read four different ways."
$175

Typography & Lyricism
The Shape of Words in Song
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 1999. Edition of 52.

8 x 11.25"; 32 leaves. Printed letterpress on Vandercook proof presses. Fonts of metal foundry type and digital type in the form of photopolymer relief plates. Softcover with paper label on front cover. Bound by Century Guild Press.

Vance Studley, Art Center College of Design, introduction and instructions to the Graphic Arts students: "Select a short passage of lyrics from any twentieth century composer/artist/performer and typographically arrange these words in a small composition that you believe resonates with the suggested tone/mood/commentary of the piece. The objective is to look for layers of meaning both subtle and obvious that make the lyrics speak to you on levels of emotion, feeling and insight. You may explore blues, world music, rock, jazz or any spoken musical idiom that uses sounds or words."
$125

Typographic Notes
The Words of Music
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 1996. Edition of 50.

7.5 x 7.25"; 42 leaves. Letterpress printed on Speckletone Kraft paper. Clothbound with paper title label on front board. Handbound by Alice Vaughan.

Vance Studley, introduction: "The following typographic variations are based on the notion of the imaginary sizes, shapes, and forms of typography using lyrics of music as a basis for literature. Upon a selective listening of a chosen composition each designer conceived of a typographic setting or framework into which the lyrics (or their fragmentary sound) would be displayed. Each page represents a felicitous and carefully planned back drop and foreground in which the idea is played out by emphasizing key elements of the song or chorus. The object and its attending scrutiny is to portray typography as an extension of the spoken and sung word as seen by the individual designers who each have contributed a page to this project."
$175 (Last Copy)

Typography and the Synthesis of Musical Form
Typographic Investigations for the Visual Listener
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 1995. Edition of 55.

7.75 x 12.5"; 24 leaves. Printed letterpress in forty-one colors using metal foundry type and polymer plates. Bound in tan blend bookcloth by Alice Vaughan with paper title label on front board. Brown ribbon bookmark.

AIGA Design Archives: "This letterpress publication attempts to show a correlation between discrete movable metal type and musical notation. The harmonics of the letterforms mimic the composers’ words as if they were musical sounds expressed in the composers’ shorthand."

Introduction, Vance Studley (instructor for the project): "For the theme of this book, each designer selected a recording of purely nonverbal music and attempted to fuse the musician's or author's commentary into a weaving of purely typographic and colored notation. The subsequent impressions ... attest to the diversity and crossover possibilities of language, letterform, and sound inherent in music from all cultures where feeling is infused with expression."
$125

The Moon
Explorations in Type and Image
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2009. Edition of 50.

6.5 x 6.5 x 1.5"; 21 foldout leaves measuring 6.5 x 13". Designed and letterpress printed by students at the Center using hand-set foundry metal and wood type, and printed on Legion Domestic Etching under the guidance of Professor Gloria Kondrup. Held in cloth covered bandoleer.

Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon, landed on July 20, 1969. In honor of the fortieth anniversary of this event students at the Archetype Press created their own exploration in type. Each student produced a single sheet that became a two page spread with information that ranges from the Bill Safire's memo "In Event of Moon Disaster" to a transcription of the final transmissions between the lunar module, the command module, and Houston before the words: "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
$225

Lift
[A Manual of Flight]
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2003. Edition of 70.

5.75 x 7.75"; 46 leaves. Printed letterpress using metal type, wood type, laser-cut masonite blocks, linoleum blocks, and photopolymer plates. Text and images printed on Mohawk Superfine (eggshell). Perfect bound by Alice Vaughan using Fabriano Ingress end sheets and FiberMark Suede/Tex for both the cover and dust jacket.

"flight: Contemplating the infinite destinations and daydreaming of strolls along foreign streets, the fantasy of travel sets in. Above the clouds and land far below, the mind begins to wander. Soaring through the sky, the journey begins and the dream becomes real ..."

Typographical riffs on the subject of flight, very liberally interpreted: leaving the nest, Braniff stewardesses, the first Israeli astronaut, WASPs, hope, imagination, and many more.
$100

25.19°
A Mars Anthology
By Students, Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, California: Archetype Press, 2002. Edition of 75.

8.25 x 8.25"; 42 folios (16 x 8" sheets folded to create a four-page folio). Printed letterpress on Vandercook proof presses using metal foundry type, wood type, linoleum blocks, wood cuts, silk screens, laser-cut masonite blocks, zinc plates, and digital polymer plates. Printed on Legion Domestic Etching and Rives BFK papers. Housed in wraparound box, handmade by Alice Vaughn, with 1.25" wide pocket into which the folio fore-edges slip.

Mars's axial tilt is 25.19 degrees, which is similar to the axial tilt of the Earth. Hence the title. Gloria Kondrup, Director of Archetype Press: "The Mars Anthology book was in honor of the Pathfinder landing on Mars. ... The students were asked to conceptually interpret any subject matter dealing with 'Mars'' [not necessarily the planet]."
$150