letterer: dedicated to the craft of letterpress printing, a man meldstraditional methods together with the digital world. His passion for metal type and appreciation for the intrinsic value of print is as relevant today as it waswhen he started printing 50 years ago, The

Print Action, Sep 2003 by Avery, Jodi

With a fresh hot metal burn on his hand, Jim Rimmer accepted a gift from a friend - two boxes of old moveable type. The friend was quitting her job in the printing industry, but she knew Rimmer would find a use for the old lead type.

A love of traditional type was not the only reason he was excited to receive the gift. Upon inspection of the fonts, Rimmer realized that he had actually been the craftsmen who cut one of the type sets in the box. He had made the moveable type when he was 19 years old. He is now approaching 70.

Rimmer practices one of the oldest forms of printing: letterpress. Like Latin to a linguist, letterpress is often thought of as a dead art to printers. But there are those few who use it, love it and promote its role in print. A role that touches printers, designers and a society that continues to consume millions of tons of print every year.

"There will always be a need for printed paper. It is a part of so many aspects of life. People say they love to hold something in their hands when they read it. When it is printed using letterpress it just gives them something more to feel when they are holding onto the paper," says Rimmer.

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In his shop at the back of his home in New Westminster, a suburb of Vancouver, Rimmer designs, cuts and casts his own hot metal type under the name Pie Tree Press and Type Foundry. Producing hand-crafted books with his own illustrations and fonts, as well as other various projects, Rimmer has always appreciated the intrinsic value of print and the highly crafted work that goes into producing it - using both traditional and modern methods.

Now retired, Rimmer led a full career as a designer, illustrator and letterer. He first discovered letterpress when he was in high school and slowly became familiar with the trade in the late 1940s. After graduation, he entered an apprenticeship to learn the craft of printing. He worked in letterpress for more than a decade, until 1963 when he began taking night school courses in graphic design.

"The trade was beginning to evaporate. So I left letterpress as a trade but continued to practice it as a craft," says Rimmer. "When I was in my apprenticeship I realized how much of an art form printing was. So I just moved from the production of the art, to the designing of the art. But I've always had a collection of machines in my home."

Rimmer retired four years ago. Just before his retirement he was a line-type operator for a newspaper called the North Shore Citizen. "I didn't quit just because I was 65. It was just good timing. I was living as an illustrator and letterer and that kind of work just completely disappeared. The computer changed the industry so much that if you weren't strong on the computer you had nothing to offer."

Computers and technology were the nails in the coffin of many letterpress printers. With the handcrafted nature of the trade, it was hard for some to keep up, and even harder for others to accept. "It's a changed world. The lettering dried up a few years before I retired. It used to keep me really busy. There was Rolling Stone-type lettering and a lot of Rococo lettering. But that just went away and I didn't know what was going on," says Rimmer.

At first he blamed technology for the lost utility of his talents. Illustrations were moving from assigned artists to stock CDs, and letterers had been completely replaced by software and modern presses.

"I soon saw that people were tweaking typography on the computer and getting by just fine. Students started learning it this way from the start and some didn't even know what hot type was. It was about this time that assigned illustrations started to dry, too. Computers were everywhere and seemed to be able to do all my jobs."

Technology, however, could not replace letterpress in Rimmer's life. To him it's a calming hobby more than a moneymaking venture. Despite the hot metal burns and the frustrations of mechanical errors, Rimmer, like many who have come across letterpress, loves the craft of hand printing and the fine-art results it produces. "I guess you could compare it to someone who's played a guitar all their life. At what point do you quit? You just continue to enjoy playing the guitar."

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Despite Rimmer's initial hostility towards advancing technology and it overshadowing his career, he realized that fighting it was not the answer. He was thankful to have led a full career, which afforded him the ability to retire and concentrate on the collection of letterpresses in his home. "At first I was angry at digital everything. I thought it was ruining design and print, which actually it did for some. It has erased careers and if they haven't moved with it they have suffered. Letterers are on the scrap heap. They are displaced. But if you move with it, there is a way to keep the art involved and incorporate computers. In that way it has made improvements to the industry. There is some really fine printing coming out of high-tech presses these days."