On a grey April day, the lovely staff at Western New York Book Arts Center welcomed the Buffalo Bloggers into their eclectic space. The Center is dedicated to sharing the art of “printing and book-related arts,” which to be honest I didn’t know a whole lot about. As a writer and reader, even a primarily digital one, that’s a mission I can get behind.
Nicole and Melissa, our guides for the evening, gave us plenty of time to flip through posters printed at the Center and other goodies in the first floor retail shop. If you’re not in the market for new wall decor, head for the card racks to find the right message for your special someone, mom or newly engaged friend.
Then came the good part: heading downstairs to see the printing presses in action. Nicole set up a design on the Center’s huge Vandercook 219 proof press, affectionately referred to as Olga. Us bloggers took turns printing posters that every Buffalover can get behind.
After laying out my very own poster out to dry, I poked through what seemed like thousands of type fonts used by artists at the center. They seem to have everything you could ever need, from itty bitty serif letters to huge ornamental pieces. And if you want to make the Richardson Olmsted Campus out of the alphabet, as one member had laid out on a table, you can do that too.
If you want to learn more about the book arts for yourself (and you should), the Center offers workshops in letterpress, screen printing and more!
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