p98a berlin Information

p98a berlin is an experimental typographic workshop, dedicated to letters, printing and paper. We are a group of multi-disciplined designers, exploring how letterpress can be redefined in the 21st century through printing, research, collecting, publishing and making things. Founded by Erik Spiekermann and Jan Gassel in 2013, we do work with our hot metal- and wood-type, several proof presses, a Heidelberg »Windmill« platen and other traditional analogue equipment and combine those with digital technologies. We expose polymer plates, cut large size type from digital data, mill punches to make matrices for casting new hot metal type and will be 3d-printing poster type as soon as the materials become affordable. We use a direct-to-plate process to output digital plates for letterpress-printing books at our friends’ shop Die Lettertypen. They have a Heidelberg Cylinder and a large 1924 Johannisberger stop-cylinder press, plus lots of other machines for typesetting, printing and finishing. We have more than 500 cases of wood type from 8 to 60 Cicero (the German equivalent of a »line«, aka 1 pica, but about 7% larger) and around 450 cases with foundry type from 6 to 96 point. The Linotype machine has 56 magazines from 6 to 18 point. Our digital Risograph is used to print small publications with spot colours, like our own p98a Paper. We do occasionally take on commercial work. We also let colleagues set type and print, as long as they contribute to our expenses. We like visitors but encourage them to make appointments in advance of their visit. We speak English, German and Polish.