Since first discovering The New Craftsmen a couple of months ago, I now seem to be bumping into one of their number at every turn. My latest encounter was with Kelvyn Laurence Smith – craftsman, designer, typographer, and printmaker – who runs the well-oiled ‘Mr Smith’s Letterpress Workshop’ in Kennington, London.
We met at the ‘Crafted: Makers of the Exceptional’ show at Somerset House early last month, where he was showing his exquisite ‘Typographic Ornament’ series, made exclusively for The New Craftsmen. Highly contemporary, yet rooted in the most traditional of crafts, these are truly stunning pieces of work.
I contacted Mr Smith after the show and he very kindly sent me these beautiful images, and more information about the project:
“The letterpress prints are constructed from a unique collection of lead type borders & ornaments. Mr Smith is in no way fancy — and as an antidote to the decorative nature of the material — the borders are formally hand-set on a simple 12 pica grid system to reinforce the beauty of the original cuts and the grace of the formal arrangement.
They are printed in very limited editions (six of each) in a particular palette of inks: gold, silver, burnt orange, rich mustard, fluorescent pink, pepper red & amazon green, on a select range of BRK Rives & Somerset 100% cotton printmaking papers.”
Deceptively simple, elegant and restrained, these pieces invite one to make the time for serious contemplation of their intricacy. The interplay between positive and negative space creates ever-changing patterns, and the texture of both paper and imprints add the most subtle and satisfying of surface detail.
The contrast between the delicate, decorative ornaments and the strict, grid-based layout reminds me of the planting of flowers and plants in formal parterre gardens; the organic shapes are contained and restrained by the geometric framework of the beds, but the exuberance and beauty of the plants’ natural curves and forms is heightened, rather than diminished, by the discipline imposed on them.
You can read more about Mr Smith’s collaboration with The New Craftsmen here, and the Typographic Ornament prints are available from their online shop; the finished works are 38cm x 76cm.
Mr Smith can be commissioned to produce a range of letterpress printed matter, including corporate identities, stationery, cards, invitations, artworks, posters and prints – find more details at www.smithrsrules.com.
Comments are closed.