Typoretum: new shedworking headquarters

Traditional letterpress typographer and printmaker Typoretum, who feature in the forthcoming Shedworking book, have moved shedquarters to a new garden office and they have kindly put lots of photos of the new place up on twitpic. "We moved and couldn’t take the old shed with us," says Justin who runs Typoretum. The new print shop is a much improved — not to mention greatly enlarged — version!"

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Justin Knopp/Typoretum: shedworker

Here's a garden office setup which I know will get many of you drooling: Typoretum (a lovely web site) is an artisan printed letterpress greeting cards and social stationery business run by Justin Knopp in Coggeshall, Colchester. Inside his shed, he hand prints, in limited quantities, from antique wooden and metal letterpress type, decorative borders and printers’ fleurons using vegetable-based inks and on paper made from 100% cotton fibre (linter). Here's how he describes the garden office:

"It's only about a quarter of the size I need but it's as big as the Council would allow us to build at the end of our garden! I really need a barn. The remainder of my collection is elsewhere, including my 1888 Wharfedale press that weighs 4-ton on its own.I designed my shed myself and, since we are in a Conservation Area, I made it look like a small barn with a hipped roof. We dug deep and specified reclaimed slates rather than the bland composite type or bizarrely coloured Chinese slates at tuppence a throw. The structure is studwork with 75mm foam insulation, concrete base and reclaimed floorboards that I bought on eBay.

There is also a Typoretum blog . I can't recommend the site too highly. Please do nip along and explore it (and buy something).

Typoretum: inside their new shedworking headquarters

Our favourite traditional letterpress typographer and printmaker Typoretum, featured in the forthcoming Shedworking book, has moved shedquarters: we posted a couple of early photos of the move but now they are very much in and running as the photograph by Trevor Disley of their new workshop above indicates (it shows the move of letterpress type and machinery into the new space with owner Justin Knopp in the background). Below is a shot of the process of moving an 1888 Wharfedale press into the workshop. For more droolworthy photos of their work, go to Typoretum's Flickr site.

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Inside Typoretum's shedworking print studio

A lovely interview with shedworker Justin Knopp of Typoretum at the spitalfieldslife.com site also features plenty of excellent photos of the inside of his printing workshop. Here's a snippet:

"Working assiduously in his Guernsey sweater and canvas apron, surrounded by nineteenth century presses and bringing new life to old techniques, Justin is a happy man. He is at home here, with a busy family life and an active involvement in village life that includes firefighting duties too. “I’ve gone from doing it purely for the love of it to making a living out of it, and we’re still alive!” he declared to me, casting his eyes around his beautiful print workshop in triumph."

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