Clint Harvey

Day two of our Handset workshop at the @toowoombaartsociety with the @saturdayprintmakers and the slang poster came together. What a session! Today was all about turning individual Australian slang words into a cohesive design. The group worked with two chases of type, layering both transparent and opaque colours, and talked through how the spacing between letterforms gives each word its weight. Kerning became a real conversation, how the space between letters can make a word feel loud or quiet. Design by committee has never been more balanced. Everyone had a say, and the poster that came off the press is pure collective energy. Huge thanks to the Toowoomba Art Society and the Saturday Print Makers for such a beautifully maintained and welcoming space, what a weekend. #letterpress #handset #woodtype #saturdayprintmakers

Day one of our Handset letterpress workshop at the @toowoombaartsociety and what a ripper start! We set up alongside Rosemary Williamson’s @ozirose stunning oil paintings of trees, landscapes and the Australian sun. The contrast between her work and our wood type collection made for a dynamic shared space. Participants got up close and personal with traditional wood type today, hand-setting Australian slang letter by letter. There’s something special about watching people slow down, pick up each piece of type and figure out how it all fits together. Another highlight was seeing kids and families wander through, drawn in by the type cases and the press. The curiosity was genuine and infectious. It’s got us thinking about a dedicated family day where young ones and their grown-ups can get creative with letterpress together. Watch this space. Big thanks to Barnaby @fulmetal_drake for his energy and enthusiasm, and to the Toowoomba Art Society for having us. Day two tomorrow. Come say g’day.

We made this handprinted letterpress poster across two impressions. The first from a chase of historic woodtype, set by hand. The second from a laser-engraved plate. Re-inked between each pass, every sheet finding the balance between too much pressure and too little.
 BOOM CHICKA BOOM. The sound Johnny Cash’s backing band made. That rolling, train-track rhythm underneath everything. He named his 76th album after it in 1990.
 The word “chicka” started as a scan of a letterpress print of smaller woodtype, reworked digitally and composed alongside a halftone of Cash, then engraved into a single plate. Old type feeding new type. Run your fingers across the woodtype letters and you’ll feel where the borers have been. Tiny tracks eaten through the endgrain, decades before the woodtype ever met our ink. Next to that, the laser plate sits clean and precise. Both surfaces carrying the image.
 DIPLOMACY BY THE BARREL. Four words about fuel, power, and foreign policy. The kind of commentary you can make on a poster that tends to get rinsed out in the digital landscape. Nobody can throttle it, flag it, or bury it. It just says what it says 
 Once you understand relief printing, the tools are everywhere. A laser engraver, a lino block, a carved piece of timber. The wood and lead type goes back in the container with us. The principle stays with you.
 We’re at @toowoombaartsociety this weekend 16th & 17th May with Handset, a two-day typographic workshop. Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 3pm. You’ll set type, lock up a forme, ink, register, and print your own edition from our Pop-Up Press. Three spots left out of eight. Link in bio or find Clint Harvey @ MTS on Eventbrite. #letterpress #woodtype #reliefprinting #printmaking #artascommentary

16–17 May | Toowoomba Art Society We’re bringing the @moveabletypestudio Pop-Up Press back to Toowoomba for a two-day traditional typesetting workshop. We’ll be working through traditional lockups, setting type by hand, working with reglets and spacing material, building out traditional typographic forms. It’s not a quick process and we will help you to slow down and enjoy the process. You start to understand how the page is constructed and the composition is a balance of positive and negative space. We’ll run small editions across the two days, so you’ll get time on press and walk away with your own hand printed editions. If you’ve been wanting to get deeper into letterpress, this is a solid couple of days to get your hands on traditional typesetting. Spaces are limited, with ticketing via eventbrite or a link in our bio.

Moveable Type Studio is heading to Toowoomba in May, and we’re spending time in the Garden City with a pair of events at the @toowoombaartsociety On Friday 15 May, we’re kicking off with Ink & Drink, a relaxed evening session introducing the fundamentals of letterpress. With a glass of wine in hand, come and work with real wood type and printing cuts (stereotypes), learn how these materials were used in commercial and community print shops for over a century. No experience needed, just curiosity and a willingness to get inky. Then on Saturday and Sunday, 16 and 17 May (10am to 3pm), we’re running Handset: a typographic workshop. Two days, two traditional presses, and more letterpress equipment than is probably sensible. This one goes deeper into the traditions of hand composition. We’ll work with wood and metal type, learn how traditional forms are assembled through the lockup process, and spend enough time at the press to produce a proper hand-printed keepsake. Fair warning: you will develop opinions about letter spacing. It’s a chance to get close to a craft that’s becoming genuinely hard to find. The equipment is scarce, the people who know how to work with it are fewer, and this is not something you pick up from a YouTube tutorial. Letterpress sits apart from other forms of printmaking. It’s not lino, it’s not etching. It’s the art of arranging individual letters and ornaments, locking them up, and printing directly from the surface in a press that runs ‘type high’. It’s how every book, newspaper and broadsheet was produced for 500 years. And yes, everything is backwards and upside down. You’ll get used to it… possibly ;) 
 Spots are limited for both sessions, and once they’re full, they’re full. Book via the links in our bio.

Who doesn’t love a pair of stripes #ripterritory

Always enjoyable delivering design foundations, nice to see @qutcreativeindustries still committed to slowing down the learning in this fast passed world.

If you have been watching from the sidelines for a while now, this is us waving you in 😉 This Sunday 29th March there is one spot left in our Ink and Drink at Hive Studios in Banyo @artfromtheurbanwilderness . Three hours, a glass of wine on arrival, good creative people around the press, and a letterpress poster you printed with your own hands to take home. Then on 11th and 12th of April we are running a full Weekend Letterpress Workshop. Two days at the press working through traditional type lockup on day one and contemporary relief printing on day two. Eight spots only. All materials supplied. No experience needed for either. Just curiosity and a willingness to get a little ink on your hands. What stays with people long after the ink has dried is not just the print they take home. It is the way slowing down and working with your hands changes how you see everything else you make. Links in bio to book. We would love to have you join us

Ok a new hat is hard to beat. A massive shoutout to Jess @akubraofficial at the strand for restyling this little guy for me #above&beyond

Doesn’t get much better than this

Over the past two Saturdays, The Edge at the @statelibraryqld was filled with ink, vintage presses, laser beams, and plenty of creative curiosity. Our Create Your Own Artist Book workshops invited participants to explore how centuries-old letterpress techniques can sit comfortably alongside contemporary digital fabrication. Across the two sessions, people learned the basics of traditional letterpress printing, experimented with wood type, created laser-engraved relief plates, and worked hands-on with items from the State Library’s collection. The result was a small run of unique artist books and zines, each shaped by individual ideas, archival discoveries, and the tactile pleasure of print. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, and to the team at The Edge for their support. The appetite for analogue making is clearly alive and well. Stay tuned via the link in our bio. There is much more to come from Moveable Type Studio this year 🤘

As 2026 gathers pace, the @statelibraryqld continues its Year of the Artist Book with talks, exhibitions and workshops exploring the form in all its complexity. Last weekend marked the conclusion of the first iteration of our Make Your Own Artist Book workshops at The Edge. A highlight of this round was spending time with material from the Library’s collection. Participants re-imagined graphic content from the collection, through contemporary laser-engraved plates, and then brought those new graphic plates back to the press. The result was a dialogue between archive and workshop, historical material translated through letterpress into newly authored artist books. Big thank you to our generous participants, and huge gratitude to SLQ for such a strong beginning to the program. We’re looking forward to the next round!