Printing customized Christmas cards is a trivial matter today: choose a photo, apply a stock background or border, add the desired text, and click a few buttons. Your colorful cards arrive in a few days. It may be the easiest way, but it’s definitely no where near as cool as the process [linotype] used this season. (Editor’s note: skip the Imgur link and go straight for the source!)
The first task was to create some large type for the year. [linotype] laser printed “2018” then used an iron to transfer toner to the end of a piece of scrap maple flooring. Carving the numbers in relief yielded ready-to-go type, since the ironing process took care of the necessary mirroring step. The wood block was then cut to “type high” (0.918 inches; who knew?) using a compositor’s table saw – with scales graduated in picas, of course.
