Have you have ever wished to build your own WANTED posters from old wooden type? Or, to design a logo using the worn faces of carved wood? With the determined work of a passionate type collector and a big sum of crowdsourced fundraising, letterpress design may soon be at your fingertips. LetterMpress™, an iPad app now in development, will allow users to choose “wooden” type and “cuts” from a growing library of typefaces and create virtual printed layouts. These layouts even include the “furniture” which holds the type in place.
The app will allow you to export the final inked image to other image manipulation software for digital output. That’s definitely cool, but the developer’s greater goal is even more exciting; to construct your digital layout using their library of physical wood characters, and send you the results as limited-edition letterpress prints. This app will be a great way for designers to explore the lost art and beauty of handcrafted typography.