The art of letterpress printing is thankfully immune to the pitfalls of the digital age. Slow, methodical, resolutely hand-crafted and with a tactile, physical result that’s inured against the ephemeral disposability of digital printing (let alone AI imitation), small letterpress studios can still survive and thrive.
Double Trip Press, Chicago, by Lieu architectural studio
Step inside this new letterpress workshop in Chicago
Chicago’s Double Trip Press hopes to retain its status as a successful small press thanks to a new space in the city’s Lincoln Square district. Designed by Danielle Beaulieu of Lieu architectural studio, in close collaboration with Double Trip’s owner Ryan Basille, the letterpress studio is the culmination of a long collaboration that included a coach house and studio as well as stationery (‘business cards and many holiday cards’).
Double Trip Press, Chicago, by Lieu architectural studio
The 1,000 sq ft unit offered more space for Basille’s vintage Vandercook & Sons printing press as well as the tools, inks, hanging and drying space required for his business. The Vandercook press was originally built by a local company (still in business as Colorado’s specialist suppliers NA Graphics), back when Chicago was one of America’s centres of commercial printing – the city still has a Printer's Row district. The press itself inspired the industrial aesthetic of Double Trip’s former space, but Basille wanted ‘a more refined, polished, and warmer touch’ for the new space.
Double Trip operates vintage Vandercook presses
‘[Ryan] wanted materials with texture and depth that emulated the tactile nature of letterpress,’ says Beaulieu. Although budget was an issue, this ultimately deepened the collaboration and opened up the concept to new ideas and approaches. The unit was long and narrow and largely open plan. By adding walls to create a separate back-of-house area (containing storage, a kitchenette, airbrushing space, utility areas and a bathroom), Lieu studio created a distinct division between the public areas of the new press.
The bespoke mobile units provide paper storage
The machinery was placed close to the front of the unit, affording passers-by an insight into the working space and also giving the team the most natural light for inking and printing. Three mobile tables serve as storage and presentation areas, as well as a dedicated inking table, while the walls of the unit have been enhanced with a shelving system designed to show off Basille’s collection of printing ephemera as well as work in progress.
The shelves are designed to shape the space as well for display
The collection includes a number of ‘sorts’ – the familiar shallow wooden drawers that were built specifically to hold metal typefaces. In turn, these sorts provided a form of inspiration for the shelving on the east and south walls of the space. Budged precluded custom carpentry, but Lieu came up with a solution using off-the-shelf Douglas fir wood, dark stained, creating an idiosyncratic grid of horizontal and vertical elements that defines the space.
Other elements also make clever use of stock components, such as the kitchen cabinetry. The moveable tables were a bespoke design and were specifically tailored to Double Trip’s everyday requirements for storage and process. As well as the dark timber, one walls has been finished in cork for a warm, textured image. The floors are polished concrete, with raw plaster set behind the shelving.
The new space provides a warm and appropriately analogue environment for the printer’s art, as well as a vital public window into the workings of Double Trip Press.
