Daniel Swartz, owner of Indiana-based letterpress design studio Hoosier Type Co., designed the 2024 UCDA Design Conference member print. Daniel also presented “Done is Better Than Perfect” at the UCDA Interchange 2024 Design Conference. Hoosier Type Co. produces self-described “small batch and perfectly imperfect” prints, using a variety of typography, custom shapes, and paper to achieve client results.
UCDA sat down with Daniel to talk with him about developing the member print for this year's conference.
Interview by Kali Daniel
Q: What inspired you to focus on the message “design a better world”, and how do you hope it resonates with the UCDA members?
Daniel Swartz: Most of my work focuses on encouraging people—giving people hope and purpose. So I'm always leaning in that direction whenever I make designs. In my print for UCDA, I set out to make something to that extent.
The members of this organization care about design. I wanted to honor that dynamic. As I was brainstorming and writing out concepts, the idea struck me of how much design does within higher education, and how design in education is preparing a whole bunch of young adults to go out and be the next generation of leaders in their communities and lead us to a better world.
Design seeks to make things better. We want to make things more clear. We want to make things understandable. We want to convey messaging. We want to make things beautiful. And I think all of those things make the world a better place. But design also has a role in making people's experiences better. Hopefully, students and others involved in higher education can carry that ideal forward and then we can keep making the world a better place.
I like the idea that there's an intentionality behind what we do. Design as a verb. We are making things better through what we do day in and day out.
Q: How did you decide on the particular color palette for this print and the shapes that you used, and what do they symbolize for you in the context of the design?
DS: I've got that starburst in the background that uses green and I like starbursts. I think they're an exciting form and all their radial shapes kind of move you. When I was doing my digital mockups, I was fiddling with different colors and different arrangements, and green kind of came to the forefront. I was very aware of UCDA’s branding. I had seen this green happening over and over, and I think that kind of snuck in through my subconscious that green was kind of going to be a dominant thing.
The rest of it is more of a contrast situation. Just solve the problem with the right values and color so it pops. The blue is a nice analogous [color], and then orange is exciting and makes it pop.
The shapes aren't necessarily symbolic, though. There are diverse shapes and forms. I like the idea of having several different pieces that all contribute together, which is symbolic, in a way, of what we're doing as designers. We're all bringing something different to the table, different histories, different expertise, and different values. And I like that we're all coming together.
And of course, it swoops up into the upper right corner, so there's this uplifting kind of [feeling].
A lot of the ornament shapes are from another designer named Donald Tarallo, who is a font designer and an instructor, but he also made this stuff called form pattern. It's these wood block shapes and little ornaments that you can use decoratively, or you can put them together and make larger-size letterforms. So most of those are taken from his work, and I've been using his stuff a lot this year. I just like the energy the geometry and the excitement. I thought this was a perfect project to throw it in there and make it something fun.
Q: What drew you to the specific typefaces that you're using, and how do they contribute to the overall message?
DS: Letterpress is very much an act of compromise. There are always constraints: time, resources, materials, and energy. All type [I used is what] I have in my cabinet on hand. And so when I'm doing my digital mockups, I'm already thinking about how a space is going to be utilized, and how can I minimize how much I need to make custom.
The top font is close to Futura. The next line is Clarendon, which is a very flexible and classic font. The lower line is Hamilton Poster Gothic Condensed. So it's a nice historic piece. It's got a little bit of an early 20th-century vibe to it.
I chose those because I like their designs, but also because they fit. Even when I was brainstorming and coming up with phrases, I was mocking up in digital type to make sure that I could make everything fit. When you move from the computer to the press, there's always a little bit of give and take, but that's not a bad thing. It's just part of the process.
Q: As a letterpress artist, how did you incorporate the unique characteristics of this technique into the print? And are there any elements that particularly showcase the craftsmanship of letterpress?
DS: This is a good example of pretty much using every tool in my kit to do this print. The background starburst I hand carved. That was made with a linoleum block and I used my late grandfather’s speedball cutter to add some irregularity into it to make it feel a little more organic, a little more handmade.
Then I've got the old type, which is all the blue stuff on the front and then the orange stuff is the newly cut type. The little badge that says “UCDA Member,” I designed digitally, and then I used a laser engraver to create that block, sealed it, sanded it, and mounted it to make it into a printable object. It's a nice showcase of all the different ways that we can make printable objects.
Q: What made you choose Mohawk Renewal Hemp Smooth Fiber White as the stock?
DS: I was initially drawn to it because of its aesthetic quality. I like that it has speckles in it and fibers, and that makes every piece a little bit different. I like the idea that it’s one more way to take everybody's print up a notch, so you know that you're getting something that's unique.
I like that the paper [is perfectly imperfect], but also it comes from some recyclable and renewable sources. I had not used this paper before, and I loved working with it. I like papers that are already coming from recycled sources. I was learning a lot about how hemp is being used now for paper making. It has some similar attributes to wood, but it's way more renewable. I was reading that it takes only 90 days for a stock to mature to the point where it can be hard, whereas a tree can take years and decades to create a finished product that we can harvest. I like the idea that there's this rapid turnover thing we can use differently. We can make something and pretty much use something that was ignored.
Q: Your work often blends traditional letterpress techniques with modern design. How do you find that balance, and how is it reflected in this piece?
DS: Everything starts with a digital mock-up in vector. I can do endless iterations and play with color as much as I want to, fiddle with fonts, and all that kind of stuff. My brainstorming process, and my sketch process, can be so flexible because I'm not starting on the press, I'm starting in this frictionless world where I have all these upnos and all the artboards that I could ever want. I think that creates maybe a different mentality that's a little more freeing for me. It allows me to dream big. Then I have to solve how I'm going to do that once we get to press.
The laser engraver makes a lot of things possible that would not be possible for me previously, or even other generations because I can only carve so small. And honestly, I only have so much patience to carve as well. If I'm trying to do a whole line like I did on this with the tiny type, there's no way that I could carve that myself. But I can use this modern tool to knock it out for me in a couple of hours and that's really exciting stuff.
Q: Were there any unique challenges you faced while creating this piece?
DS: This has been the most challenging print that I've ever done on the technical side. Getting that small type that talks about the paper at the bottom was a really big technical challenge for me; trying to figure out what the smallest size is I could print that would be printing consistently, but be legible at the same time. But it was a lot of physical labor because I'm printing these manually. I'm not using automated presses.
Because I'm inking and pressing manually, I was going to do two colors on one pass. But as I was thinking through it and how I was going to pull this off, I saw that it needed to be three passes. It would allow me to ink a little bit faster instead of being careful about not getting ink in the wrong places. 150 units with three color passes each, and then I do about 15% overage to give myself margin because I know I'm going to make mistakes: Paper will get bent, ink will get somewhere it's not supposed to, I’ll drop something. I think that yielded about 550 different ink and pull passes, which was a lot of physical labor
Usually, I work in fairly small editions of 50 or less, so this was a lot and a bit of a mental game. I think they're all great prints. Anyone's going to look at one and be like, “oh, this is nice.” I love that there's just that slight variation as you move through the series and it makes every one of them special, just like the speckling in the paper. Everybody knows they're getting a unique work of art, even if it's within the edition of the same design.
Q: What advice would you give to designers who are looking to experiment with letterpress and other traditional methods in their own work?
DS: Anything we can do to connect contemporary practice to history can only benefit us because you get a better and deeper understanding of where things came from and how things evolved. The traditions that came about, and even things like just understanding why things are named certain ways in your panels in Adobe and how that filtered through time and different generations. There's something about the kinetic, the physical act of working with type which makes you connect with typography a little bit differently. You know how to change your kerning, and I am so thankful for that tool when I'm working digitally, but it's different when I'm on the press. I have to go out and use a table saw and tiny little hand saw to file things down. I think to lay out and kern typography [manually] makes you a little more sensitive. If nothing else, you appreciate it more.
For people who want to get started, look in your area. There are a lot of letterpress shops out there that do workshop days or evening classes. There can be some great opportunities there to dip your toe into the pool and see if it's something that you want to go deeper with. Most of the people that I have spoken with and worked with in the letterpress community are just so giving and friendly, and they want this craft to continue. Reach out to your local shops and see if you can get in there and start getting inky.
Daniel Swartz presented “Done is Better Than Perfect” at the UCDA Interchange 2024 Design Conference.
You can read more about Daniel and Hoosier Type Co at https://hoosiertypeco.squarespace.com/
Paper by Mohawk.