Chandler & Price 12×18
12×18 job press
Chandler & Price Pilot
6.5×10 job press
Chandler & Price Model Z
10×15 job press
Chandler & Price Model Z
8×12 job press
Chandler & Price Model Z
14.5×22 job press
The Letterpress Forward Foundation will be a 501(c)(3) organization working to preserve online letterpress history and to support the new generation of printers who are reviving a centuries-old craft.
Project No. 1
A modern, accessible user experience for an irreplaceable letterpress community
Starting with Briar Press, and then turning to other aging websites, Letterpress Forward will safeguard and restore electronic letterpress resources that are at risk of disappearing.
Beginning spring 2025
The initial term of Letterpress Forward will include standing up the foundation
- 1995
- Briar Press launches on the (still newish) World Wide Web
- 2007
- The fifth, and latest, Briar Press redesign is released—17 years ago
- 2024
- Letterpress Forward Foundation formed to restore aging resources
- 2025
- Projected restoration of Briar Press, rebuilt from the ground up
- 2026
- Letterpress Forward turns to other endangered printing resources
Fwd:
The back story
In 1995, we launched a website dedicated to saving letterpress-era machinery—the printing presses that enabled knowledge empowerment and information equality during the Renaissance through the Enlightenment and into the Industrial Age.
Nearly thirty years later, the community that has grown up around Briar Press is thriving. But the website, which contains irreplaceable historical and technical knowledge contributed by countless printers—many of them renowned, some no longer living—has become obsolete. The loss of this historical record and present-day resource is likely without intervention.
We created Letterpress Forward to restore and sustain Briar Press, along with other endangered online printing history resources, and are currently working through the initial steps of setting up the foundation.
How you can help
You can lend your support to the project by joining our mailing list. We’ll send you occasional updates, no more than one per month, with progress updates and ways you can pitch in.