<heritage craft letterpress cleeve press handcrafted art greeting cards></heritage>
Photograph copyright of Nicholas J. Birchall © June 2018
On-line galleries and Sale
C l e e v e P r e s s W e b S i t e
I have within memory always drawn, painted, arranged compositions & made objects.
The analysis & creation of images is a constant fascination to me, how the stimuli of recognizable elements, colour & light evoke emotions & memories in the viewer.
This led me to Gloucester art college in 1969 where I studied foundation art, graphic design & photography. I set movable metal type for college typography projects. This tactile experience stayed with me as a seed of an ambition.
I lived in Norway for three years & developed my design skills. After working as a freelance graphic designer, photographer & illustrator for 30 years, I saw how the dawn of the Digital Age in design had fundamentally change the production process. Consequently I re-trained in art & design education at Loughborough College of Art & Design (LUSAD) 1995 to 1996.
I then taught Graphic Design & Photography at F.E Colleges in the East Midlands, while continuing my own creative projects.
In 2006 I began saving & renovating vintage letterpress type & equipment. This has now developed into a composing room with a range of typefaces & printing office with various hand presses & an 1863 Albion flat bed press. Cleeve Press organises letterpress workshops with small groups which facilitate individual tuition.
We produce handcrafted letterpress items from my own designs with originality & sparks of humour. Printed Greetings Cards, Posters, Booklets & Commissioned print. These are sold at Print Fairs, “Printers Wayzgooses” & on our website.
My other interests are in digital and analogue photography along with wet media illustration & painting. I have designed & built my own large format camera & will combine these images into letterpress projects. Some of my work is developed on the Apple Mac, mainly Illustration & Photographic collages. Examples are on WordPress & Flickr. In the future I plan to exhibit the various media I work in.
I am a member of the
The Heritage Craft Association
Nicholas J. Birchall 26th June 2022
A V i d e o O f L e t t e r p r e s s P r i n t i n g
Maylis A Wholly New Fount
https://www.facebook.com/Cleevepress
w e h a v e a w i d e r a n g e o f g r a p h i c i m a g e s a t
I m a g e G a l l e r y L i n k
Cleeve Press is a member of
T h e H e r i t a g e C r a f t A s s o c i a t i o n
L e t t e r p r e s s C o m p o s i n g R o o m & P r i n t i n g O f f i c e
K e y s k i l l s a n d a b i l i t i e s
Professional design skills in digital publishing & imaging •Advertising and promotional experience
Experience in advertising photography • Efficiently organises information & arranges events
Commercial & educational customer care • Teaching experience in art & design
Designed effective learning programmes & support material
Experience with sensitive information & working in secure environments
Fluent in the Norwegian language
A c h i e v e m e n t s
Founded & ran a graphic design business • Member of The Oxford Guild of Printers Degree in art & design teaching • Commercial Photography Experience/Level 4 Qualification Comprehensive experience to teach art & design • Arranged links between education & creative sector Contributed to the local policing plan • Organised local youth work & a drop-in centre
I n t e r e s t s
I am interested in co-operating with other visual artists……. Lensless photography, pinhole cameras, large format photography. Typography, Letterpress type and Printing. Cartoons, Drawing, Watercolour/Ink Sketches/Illustrations. Cartography, the outdoor world and many more things……..
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nickgraphic letterpress art 
I am starting a new online website directory and was wanting to know if I can submit your blog? I’m hoping to grow my directory slowly by hand so that it retains top quality. I’ll make sure and put your website in the proper category and I’ll additionally use, “%BLOGTITLE%” as your anchor text. Please make sure to let me know if this is acceptable with you by contacting me at: %EMAIL%. Thanks alot 🙂
Hi You are welcome to include Cleeve Press. We have the wordpress blog and a web site cleevepress.co.uk
With havin so much content and articles do you ever run into any issues of plagorism or copyright infringement? My website has a lot of unique content I’ve either created myself or outsourced but it looks like a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my permission. Do you know any solutions to help reduce content from being ripped off? I’d definitely appreciate it.
Copyright, no such thing in reality! I just now regard it as a form of flattery to have work reblogged! I always ask the author before using an image or copy and always give a full “credit” when I do and expect the same courtesy. There is software which will “watermark your images or simply use photoshop to put your own copyright text across an image.
© Nicholas Birchall January 2019
should under international law be all you need if you are the sole originator of the work
I抦 not that much of a internet reader to be honest but your blogs really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your website to come back later on. Cheers
I enjoy what you guys are usually up too. This type of clever work and exposure! Keep up the fantastic works guys I’ve incorporated you guys to our blogroll.
Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your article seem to be running off the screen in Firefox. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know. The design and style look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Thanks
Hello there! This is kind of off topic but I need some advice from an established blog. Is it very hard to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty quick. I’m thinking about setting up my own but I’m not sure where to begin. Do you have any points or suggestions? With thanks
Hi The first step is to plan what you need to say. I always type text in a seperate wordprocessing app and file on the desk top. Images need to be cropped and prepared and manipulated in photoshop and filed in the same area. After thinking of an original “bio” name for your self open a wordpress page and with text “copy and paste” images are “drag and drop”.
Remember few people will see the blog untill you start to share it, so a slow start is no problem. Regards Nick
Hi Nick,
I have some Monotype specimen sheets from my days at Ravensbourne College of Art & Design in the late seventies. I saw your picture of a sheet of Grotesque 216 on Pinterest so I wondered if you’d like mine. I am having a clear-out but I didn’t want to put them in the recycling if anyone might like them. I have Gill Sans, Grotesque 215, Univers, Bodini 135 and Times New Roman – all in different weights, including italic. Would they be of any interest to you or do you know anyone else who might like them? It seems a shame to throw them out.
Best wishes,
Pam Harrington
Hi Pam
I would be very interested, so thank you for contatcting me. One of the things I collect is type spec. books and type sheets.
Would you post them to me? I will pay of course.. pay pal? I am in Leicester 18 Windmill Avenue, Birstall, Leicester LE4 4JH
Regards Nicholas Birchall
my e-mail is cleevepress@gmail.com
Hi Pam I thought I had replied to your offer? I would love to have the type specimen sheets and obviously I would pay. Life seems so busy even in retirement that is why I have just got back to looking at your post. The felt pictures are very impressive and a new medium to me. Regards Nick
Hi Nick, I’m away at the moment so I’ll look them out when I get back.
Thanks,
Pam
Saved as a favorite, I love your site!|
Thank you so much, I have spent some time researching and writing these pages.
Perhaps you would like to look at cleevepress.co.uk where we practice letterpress?
I am always interested to exchange ideas, information and experience on Art & Design, Letterpress or Photography.