Joined this 2 hours workshop organised by SPH to learn the history of letterpress printing with Yao from Typesettings last Saturday.
For me, it’s a walk through memory lane. My first encounter with this printing technique was decades ago, when I was still in primary school, though I can’t recall the exact year.
Once and only once my late father brought me to the newspaper printing press, namely 山打根自由日报, which belonged to his adoptive father's family (The Khoo Family). He went off to settle his thing, so I was left there to admire the rows and rows of tiny metal type printing blocks. I was fascinated yet did not really know what were they till many years later.
Unfortunately, with offset printing as the norm, most of the blocks and machines were probably being scrapped already.
We also had some hands-on afterwards.
A handmade Chinese type specimen book—every letter is individually pasted—from a now defunct printer in Singapore.
There is a write-up about Yao's struggle to bring back authentic printing in Singapore at eyeondesign.aifa.org. I sincerely wish this is not a losing battle. Keep it up.
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