Hamilton Wayzgoose 2011

The third annual Wayzgoose at the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum was fantastic. We printed our own posters with Brad Vetter and Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Print, tried our hands at some calligraphy with Paul Shaw, cut our own letterforms for pressure printing with Juliet Shen and Carl Montford and bound our own portfolios with Kevin Steele. The typographer, Matthew Carter (creator of on-screen classics such as Verdana and Georgia) gave an excellent talk complete with actual slides. Judith Poirier of École de design UQAM in Montreal shared with us her incredible experimental films: she letterpress prints directly on 16 and 35 mm film stock to create animations.

We met some great people, had tons of fun, ate too many cheese curds, and came home with inky hands. Looking forward to doing it again next year, Two Rivers!

SWAG we get to make ourselves. I wanted one in every color.

 Jim Sherraden and Brad Vetter (both far left) of Hatch Show Print

Calligraphy with Paul Shaw. He made it look so easy!

Busy binders

Printing with amazing old blocks from Hatch Show Print

Evidence from last year's wayzgoose

Post and photos by Claire Sammons

The wayzgoose is coming! The wayzgoose is coming!

The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum's annual type conference is coming up this November 4, 5 and 6. But it's way more fun to just call it Hamilton Wayzgoose 2011. Wtf is a wayzgoose you ask? Allow us to spare you the Google search: traditionally, the wayzgoose was pretty much a big party the master printer would give to his workers at the end of the summer season. Hamilton's wayzgoose retains the fun and celebratory atmosphere of ye olde days with the added intellectual stimulation of a conference!

Several of us Book & Paper-ers went last year and had a truly amazing time. We learned all about the magical world of wood type, printed our own souvenir posters (from wood type, of course) networked with an international community of print/type rock stars, ogled over the museum's collection of type, and had coffee and donuts for breakfast every day. It really is a fantastic experience even if you're not a type geek . . . but after the weekend is over you might want to become one.

 For more information about Hamilton and its fabled wayzgoose go to woodtype.org

Posted by: Claire Sammons