Nuzzle Nuzzle

Early last week I had a request from Abby Hyndman, daughter of my friends Nicky and Dave: she’s a student in the Holland College videography program, and wondered if I’d entertain being the subject of a short documentary about letterpress printing, her final course assignment. I happily agreed, and met Abby and her trusty assistant in the letterpress shop last Thursday afternoon for a few hours.

I needed something to print.

I’d been thinking a lot about the word “nuzzle” of late, and so it became my subject: I wanted to see if I could represent, in cold hard type, a sense of “nuzzlieness.”

I started off on the bench with various ink colours and improvised: red-over-yellow, yellow-over-red, upside down over rightsize up, backward and forward. Midway through my improv I tweaked things to dip the U below the baseline, thinking, perhaps, it could act as a sort of nuzzled-nose.

A collection of NUZZLE test prints.

Once Abby was in the shop, the improvisation continued, and where I ended up was rather magical in the way that sometimes happens when you don’t plan and just let the type dance:

Final Nuzzle

Abby documented the process, and so you can watch a slice of the making of the Nuzzle in the video she sent along today, kindly giving me permission to share:

If you’d like to hire Abby for her video or graphic design talents, you can find her here.

Comments

Susan White's picture
Susan White on March 30, 2021 - 12:47 Permalink

That was very enjoyable to watch.

Andrew's picture
Andrew on March 30, 2021 - 15:14 Permalink

That’s so cool, thanks for sharing. It took such effort and skill to something that these days, like so many other tasks, is just a quick click of a button.

Nicky Hyndman's picture
Nicky Hyndman on March 30, 2021 - 21:10 Permalink

Love this on so many levels ... including the word nuzzle and what you did with it, Peter!

Anne Hyndman's picture
Anne Hyndman on March 31, 2021 - 22:52 Permalink

That was fascinating - loved it. And you certainly accomplished that sense of "nuzzlieness" (such a great word).