Hamilton Ink Spot is the first venture to which Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum lends its name. Based in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Hamilton is the only museum dedicated to the preservation, study, production and printing of wood type. With 1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns, Hamilton’s collection is one of the premier wood type collections in the world.
Managed and curated by Bill Moran, he has worked since 1986 in Saint Paul and since 2011 from the Wabasha Street location and has been involved with the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum since 2001.
I asked Moran to tell me more.
Why are you opening a retail store?For years museum fans and friends have lamented the fact that Hamilton Wood Type didn’t have a presence in a major metropolitan area. The design community as a whole has really embraced the resurgence of letterpress and the Twin Cities are especially devoted to the craft with dozens of printers working here and we also host the venerable Minnesota Center for Book Arts. This store gives us a chance to sell Hamilton prints, showcase local printers, provide gallery space and offer classes in letterpress and screen printing.
What will you be carrying?We’ll carry Hamilton clothing, limited edition prints, aprons and greeting cards. We also showcase the work of our co-op members who are a talented bunch of designers, illustrators and printers. They’ll not only have their work for sale but also have access to our printing studio. And we’ll also be offering classes for people who like to get inky.
Is there an online component?Since we’re under the umbrella of the museum we’re directing folks to our online store. http://woodtype.org/store We’re also generating a nice following on Facebook
What will make this store unique to the typographic world?Hamilton Wood Type is a 5 hour drive from Saint Paul so if you want to get a wood type fix you can get it here without the long road trip. We’ll not only showcase key fonts from Hamilton’s collection but we’ve also got Nick Sherman’s 8ft tall cutting of Brylski Condensed. (There’s only 5 characters cut so far, but they’re the important ones). We’re also going to show off our fresh cutting of Erik Spiekermann’s new font Artz (below) which will be available in digital form on June 10th here.
