Design Work Life: Cataloging Inspiration Daily

The Hungry Workshop has recently launched a let­ter­press print exhi­bi­tion and sale to ben­e­fit the dis­as­trous flood­ing that hit Queensland, Australia ear­lier this year. A group of artists from the area banded together, each cre­at­ing a lim­ited edi­tion, two-color print that cel­e­brates the spirit of Queenslanders. All of the result­ing prints are avail­able right here. And here are some fur­ther details, straight from the source:

In January 2011, Queensland was hit hard by dis­as­trous flood­ing, fill­ing our towns and cities with brown, murky water and ruin­ing homes, busi­nesses and lives. While our power was cut, we were reflect­ing on how we could assist the relief effort over the com­ing weeks. Thinking big, we banded together some of Queensland’s lead­ing illus­tra­tors and design­ers, both past and present, for a fundraiser with a difference.

The brief was to cre­ate a two colour illus­tra­tion or design with an aim to instill the hope, courage or even humour that is abound in the core of Queenslanders. Together, the sub­mis­sions cov­ered a broad range of sub­jects rang­ing from the iconic, such as the bridges that span the Brisbane River and the years of the floods to the whim­si­cal, with an ode to ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’.

We used an old Heidelberg Windmill to turn the work of fif­teen con­trib­u­tors into a set of lim­ited run let­ter­press prints. The pro­duc­tion of the col­lec­tion explores the intri­ca­cies of let­ter­press. Each of the thirty colours was care­fully mixed by hand. Some colours were pressed twice to achieve a deeper impres­sion, or a in the case of gold ink, the richer cov­er­age required for metal­lic inks. For a few prints the impres­sion was dialled right back to pro­duce a mot­tled water effect, whereas in the case of a blind print (with­out ink) the impres­sion was pushed to the extreme to ensure the type remained legible.