Pilcrow Editions
A Letterpress Print Project
Pilcrow Editions came about from a love of typography and corvids. A pilcrow is an editor’s mark, a backwards P (¶), which denotes a paragraph stop or line break, and represents to us, the marking of moments as they pass by. Pilcrow editions in run by Illustrator, Designer and Artist Jacob Maddison, along with his partner Laura, young son and rascal cat. All the art made in the Coast Salish territory known as Vancouver BC. The art attempts to represent things that are dear to our family and bring us joy in the outdoors.
All our prints are produced on hundred year old Heidelberg Windmill presses, delicately operated by skilled artisans in Vancouver, BC. Letterpress is a technique that uses a raised form, called relief printing, to press ink into a sheet of paper. It was developed in order to print books with moveable-type (individual blocks, each with a single letter on top). This technique, popularized in the west in by Johannes Gutenberg in around 1440, gets its origins in the Northern Song Dynasty by inventor Bi Sheng, around the year 1000. The modernized version uses photographic plates, and machines called Heidelberg Windmill presses. These gorgeous cast-iron presses, invented in the early 20th century, use a combination of mechanical and pneumatic timing to feed sheets through their belly, clamping the paper with a tonne of pressure, before releasing the sheet beautifully imprinted with the image. Letterpress printing leaves a delicate texture on the page as the image is pressed deep into the surface of the paper. This slowly fading art provides for prints that are rich and full of detail. Printed on a combination of FSC certified and recycled papers.
