A letterpress printer on its beauty, history and the family that connects him to the art
'I think it's just got a little bit more soul to it'
"When somebody picks up something that's printed by letterpress, not something that's just printed digitally, whether they know what letterpress printing is or not, I think they're always going to prefer the letter press."
Stephen Mullally runs Brazen Crow Press, a letterpress studio in East Vancouver and maintains there's something about letterpress printing that people will notice — even if they don't realize what it is they like about it. "I think it's just got a little bit more soul to it."
"The ink colours are truer and there's imperfections that you can try to mimic digitally but I don't think you can really authentically replicate it."
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Beyond the results the process creates, Mullally feels connected to the process itself, for both historical and personal reasons. "I'm definitely a little bit nostalgic for days when printing like this was more mainstream. For me personally, I found out a while ago that printing is in both sides of my family."
"It's nice to think that I'm doing this sort of work, which is very similar to what my great grandad would have done, and my grandad. It's kind of cool that it's the family business."
See more of Stephen Mullally's work below:
