CAS News

Category: English

Valentine’s at the letterpress

April 29, 2025 Written by Megan M.F. Everhart | Hilary Douwes

We think of Valentine's Day as a time for love and chocolate, but for students who visited University of Delaware’s Raven Press on February 14, it was a day to have fun with a hands-on activity, while learning a bit about historic print technology.

In letterpress printing, ink is applied to a raised surface, like a stamp, and pressed onto a surface. It revolutionized printing and communication in the mid-1450s and was not replaced until 500 years later as technology developed. As presses across the country were being dismantled, faculty from the Department of Art and Design salvaged equipment and opened Raven Press studio in 2003.

The press, which includes two large presses as well as a variety of smaller equipment, has been largely inactive since 2020, but faculty from the Department of English and Department of Art and Design are partnering to allow more students to experience this technique.

Laura Helton, associate professor of English, and Katie Leech, assistant professor of art and design opened Raven Press on Valentine’s Day for the campus community to learn about and use stamps and letterpresses. Students from across campus enjoyed creating their own designs during the event.

Assistant Professor Katie Leech operates the Vandercook 219 letterpress. Leech teaches a letterpress printing class for art and design majors.

Students customized their cards with stamps. They arranged stamps on a press, inked them, placed cards, then pulled a roller across to print the design.

Senior art major Lillyanne Dominguez and junior Cassidy Driscoll, who has a biochemistry major and a forensic science minor, arrange stamps on a hand press.

Raven Press houses 800 cases of metal type and 2,500 pieces of wood type, allowing students to experiment with typography and physical composition of the printed page.

Freshman art conservation major Rowan Dominick operates the Universal 1 press. Dominick works with Leech at the press, helping to sort and clean the type pieces.

Art and design faculty salvaged equipment from across the country to create Raven Press, including this 1832 R. Hoe Washington style iron hand press.

Leech hangs freshly printed cards from the ceiling to dry while junior landscape architecture major TJ Vieira operates the Universal 1.

Sophomore Gia Joella, an honors double major in political science and communication with minors in journalism and theatre studies, displays the cards she created.