The Letterpress Film Screening Q&A with Director and Jonathan Hoefler

Pressing On: The Letterpress Film is a documentary that explores the question: why has letterpress survived in a digital age? Worlds of each character emerge as unusual narratives—joyful, mournful, reflective and visionary—are punctuated with on-screen visual poetry, every shot meticulously composed. Captivating personalities blend with wood, metal and type as young printers strive to save this historic process in a film created for the designer, typographer, historian and collector in us all. After the screening, Jonathan Hoefler, Hoefler & Co., and film co-director Erin Beckloff will discuss letterpress printing’s role as a tool of connection between people through time in design and typography.

Erin Beckloff is a letterpress printer, designer, educator, and filmmaker who preserves anecdotal and technical knowledge of printing history and culture. Her research explores letterpress community’s expansiveness through time and how the letterpress printing process will survive through educating others in the craft. She is the co-director and writer of “Pressing On: The Letterpress Film,” a documentary about the survival of letterpress and the remarkable printers who preserve the history and knowledge of the craft. Beckloff has given presentations at two Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum Wayzgoose conferences; ATypI Antwerp, UCDA Educator’s Summit; College Book Art Association Conferences; and universities around the U.S. She serves as an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Miami University and holds an MFA in Graphic Design from Vermont College of Fine Arts.