Silver Buckle Press

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Literary Selections on Cartography Recent activities at the Silver Buckle Press include the design and production of a limited edition broadside commissioned by the History of Cartography Project, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The text is a quotation by Henry David Thoreau excerpted from Ktaadn, an essay collected in The Maine Woods. The broadside reproduces a detail from Moses Greenleaf’s Map of the State of Maine with the Province of New Brunswick. For the design of this year’s broadside we wanted type set on a curving, labyrinth-like path. (In Thoreau’s passage he refers to Greenleaf’s map as containing a labyrinth of errors.) Since it’s not possible to successfully hand set movable type on a tight curve, the layout was done digitally in Adobe Illustrator using 18 pt. Baskerville Old Face. The design required two runs—one for the map (printed in green) and one for the type (over-printed in black). We printed from photopolymer plates mounted on a plate base to bring them to type height. The edition of 250 broadsheets was printed on Fabriano Ingres paper using a Vandercook 4T press. Learn more about Literary Selections on Cartography.

		For several years, Silver Buckle Press has collaborated with the History of Cartography Project to produce an editioned print for their annual Literary Selections on Cartography series. The Project offers its donors an annual hand printed broadsheet featuring writings--poetry and short excerpts from many sources. Silver Buckle Press staff designs and prints the broadsheets working collaboratively with History of Cartography Project staff to choose appropriate type and illustrations. This broadsheet series was begun in 1992 by David Woodward, cofounder of the History of Cartography Project.