amisdefreinet.org
Set by Hand — a register of
the classroom printing press

Index

All entries

Twenty-two entries across five sections. Every one reachable from here, without a menu.

The Press

5 entries
  • 01 The press at the back of the room A small cast-iron flatbed sized so that a child could ink, lay, pull and lift without help. What that constraint decided about everything else — sheet size, run length, and how many hands a single edition needed. By Marguerite Auclair · The Press · 6 min read
  • 02 Inking by roller Too much ink fills the counters, too little skips. The narrow band between, and how it is judged by eye. By Thomas Rilke · The Press · 2 min read
  • 03 The pull Pressure, packing and dwell. Why the same forme prints differently on two consecutive sheets. By Nadia Sorrel · The Press · 2 min read
  • 04 Registration Getting the second colour to land on the first, with no mechanism to help. By Peter Vantroyen · The Press · 2 min read
  • 05 Drying the sheets Pegged on a line across the room. Why the print run was limited by wall space as much as by time. By Marguerite Auclair · The Press · 2 min read

Type & Case

5 entries
  • 01 The case and its order The compartments are not alphabetical. They are ordered by frequency, and the wear pattern on an old case is a frequency table. By Thomas Rilke · Type & Case · 3 min read
  • 02 The composing stick Set upside down and backwards, three lines at a time, with the measure fixed before the first letter. By Nadia Sorrel · Type & Case · 2 min read
  • 03 Spacing and justification The line must fill exactly. Spaces are metal, and the last one is chosen with tweezers. By Peter Vantroyen · Type & Case · 2 min read
  • 04 Sorts run out A case holds a finite number of each letter. What a class does when the e box empties mid-sentence. By Marguerite Auclair · Type & Case · 2 min read
  • 05 Distribution Putting the type back is half the work and all of the discipline. By Thomas Rilke · Type & Case · 2 min read

The Newspaper

5 entries
  • 01 A real print run Not an exercise: a numbered edition, printed in quantity, distributed outside the room. What that changes about how it is written. By Nadia Sorrel · The Newspaper · 3 min read
  • 02 Free text The piece is chosen by its writer, then argued over by the class before it is set. By Peter Vantroyen · The Newspaper · 2 min read
  • 03 Editing before setting Correction is cheap on paper and expensive in metal. The revision happens before the stick. By Marguerite Auclair · The Newspaper · 2 min read
  • 04 The masthead Cut once, kept for years, and the one piece of the paper nobody re-sets. By Thomas Rilke · The Newspaper · 2 min read
  • 05 What a run costs Paper, ink and time, counted against a classroom budget. By Nadia Sorrel · The Newspaper · 2 min read

Correspondence

4 entries
  • 01 Two editions in an envelope Schools exchanged printed papers rather than letters. What arrives is a publication, which is a different thing to receive. By Peter Vantroyen · Correspondence · 4 min read
  • 02 Writing for strangers A reader two hundred miles away shares no context. The prose changes accordingly. By Marguerite Auclair · Correspondence · 2 min read
  • 03 The network Who was posting to whom, and how the map of it grew by introduction rather than by plan. By Thomas Rilke · Correspondence · 2 min read
  • 04 What came back Replies, corrections and the occasional argument in print. By Nadia Sorrel · Correspondence · 2 min read

The Register

3 entries
  • 01 Keeping the record What was set, on what press, in what run, and where it went. The register as the surviving evidence. By Peter Vantroyen · The Register · 3 min read
  • 02 Dating an undated sheet Type wear, paper stock and the masthead cut. How a loose sheet is placed. By Marguerite Auclair · The Register · 2 min read
  • 03 What survives Ephemeral by design, kept by accident. Which copies still exist and why. By Thomas Rilke · The Register · 2 min read