Once in a while, things go horribly wrong...

The process of setting cold type is fiddly. Perhaps it’s the most fiddly thing there is, arranging tiny metal letters in a row, inserting spaces, filling out lines to be the same length, creating a forme that gets locked into a chase for printing.

Most of the time it’s just fiddly. Sometimes, though, things go horribly wrong. Often these times are times when too much time has been spent in the print shop, trying to do just one more thing, taking advantage of the ink already on the press.

Yesterday was one such time:

It was, indeed, the end of a long day. I’d set the type for a set of This Box is for Good boxes we’re about to send to our collaborator Simone, in Adelaide. 

I was tired, and rushing, and annoyed with the fiddliness. In a move to optimize the printing process, I turned everything 90 degrees at the last minute. And, in doing so, I crossed a line from stable to unstable; lifting the chase into the press, everything came crashing down to the floor.

I know enough to know that the proper response to this is to clean up and go home, returning the next day with fresh energy. 

That’s what I did, and today’s session went pleasantly crashing-to-the-ground-free. 

Hence this pile of almost 200 boxes, ready for shipment over the Pacific early this week: