'X Marks The Spot' - Letterpress Print

This work references London’s E10 postcode - Leyton, in the Borough of Waltham Forest. A Roman numeral X for 10 coupled with a colour-pop on the ‘E’ of THE for East.

A Bold Print made with a heavily-deteriorating wooden ‘X’ 30cm tall (that’s 850 points in printer speak or 12-Line wood type). The block was rescued along with several members of its fount-family from an old pastor-printer in Bournemouth in 2018. He purchased them from a defunct ‘Lion Publishing’ in Southwark, London in the 1970’s. Pieces of glued paper or ‘Make Ready’ on the reverse of many of the blocks has old-print referencing Skegness, so I’m slightly baffled as to the true origins. Try emulating that patina and story in photoshop!

Printed alongside is a very small wood fount (48pt size) Gill Sans or similar (made by Frederick Ullmer, London). The set was missing a couple of letters, so during lockdown, these were recreated by a woodtype maker in Wales, referencing originals from another set. eXcellent Stuff!