Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.

November 20, 2007 7:54 PM

The printing press lives on—in Akron, Alabama, at least, where computer programmer-turned-letterpress printer Amos Kennedy uses metal type to create lots and lots of posters. [Found here.]
posted by tepidmonkey (12 comments total)

I have this print from Kennedy & Sons, picked up at last year's Montreal Expozine. It is magnificently exquisite, combining both the Rural Studio and badass letterpressing.
posted by 235w103 at 9:52 PM on November 20, 2007

*psssst*

Shhhhh. Listen up. With the existing Alabama MeFites leading the charge, we could TAKE OVER Hale County, Alabama. I know musicians, sculptors, architects, lawyers, and others who've been quietly moving down to the Hale County/Marengo County area for years. They're enticed by grand old homes at rock-bottom prices and a culture where the default setting for law enforcement is "leave me the fuck alone until I do something so outrageous you have to arrest me for it". Five hundred people, man. We could fucking take over. All the ambitious smart people are GONE by 18, and the rest are either so corrupt or so stupid that they can be bought or traduced. We start with the Greensboro city council, and move on to the county commission. Five hundred people collectively infusing a million bucks into the effort (what's two grand in exchange for RUNNING YOUR OWN FUCKING COUNTY?) It could happen. Ya gotta believe.

/I'm just sayin'
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:54 PM on November 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

Hand-set type looks amazing printed up nicely like that. I especially enjoy some of their layered compositions, like this one.
posted by sleeping bear at 10:52 PM on November 20, 2007

It's also alive at Hatch Show Print which is worth a peak. Since the mid-90s they've started doing some very David Carson inspired posters, with lots of overlapping print and reuse of old wood cuts. Some examples here.
posted by inthe80s at 5:42 AM on November 21, 2007

I like their motto.
posted by WPW at 6:17 AM on November 21, 2007

We just had a Hatch Show Print show here in Columbia, SC, so this sort of stuff has been on my mind lately. Now that Columbia has it's own homegrown printshop with the great Half and Half I'm tempted to say that the small town printer is in a revival, and I say more power to them. The day I see a "Lose weight now, ask me how" or "Make $5000 a Month From Home" sign in letterpress is the day I finally stop tearing them down and instead frame them and put them in my house.

These are nice, I like the Aaron Douglas style of the first four this page.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 6:44 AM on November 21, 2007

No thread on this topic would be complete without the mention of H. N. Werkman. Sorry, in a rush and no links to provide...
posted by mania at 7:16 AM on November 21, 2007

I took a letterpress course a couple of years ago. Trust me, you really haven't lived until you've meticulously hand-set a whole page of some 8-point condensed typeface, only to see it explode into a million tiny shards as you drop it on the floor. Such immense grief is tough to find in this newfangled digital world of ours.
posted by Reggie Digest at 8:38 AM on November 21, 2007

Damn, for a brief moment I thought it was Akron, Ohio, where I heading in a few hours. Otherwise, very nice stuff. It's good to see such craftsmanship amongst all the typography abuse that goes on today.
posted by slogger at 8:44 AM on November 21, 2007

It appears that Hale County/Akron, AL is about fifteen miles from Greensboro which, I'm pretty sure, was the basis for the fictional town of Greenbow, Alabama.

But yeah, I'm all for moving there and turning the place into a slacker/hippie/anarchist paradise. Alabama's needed one of those for a long time.
posted by Clay201 at 10:56 PM on November 21, 2007

Dude. It's OURS. Let's take it.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:15 AM on November 22, 2007

I'm trying to get someone to do letterpress printing for our wedding invites, and there's no economy of scale. I only want 10 printed, but it's the same cost as 100 because of the setup and breakdown.

Letterpressies seem very emotional about their art. The tiny shards comment probably illustrates why.
posted by subbes at 7:49 AM on November 22, 2007