The invention of moveable type was part of Gutenberg's great fifteenth century revolution. There have been very many changes since then, of course, but we are proud that we are carrying on the tradition he started  when we are hand setting.

Each letter is made of a rectangular piece of metal with a mirror image of the character at one end. They are picked up one at a time and the words assembled in a jig called a composing stick. Spaces of various sizes are added to separate the words and to make all the lines the same length so that they can be locked together for printing.

You can see our range of typefaces and sizes for hand setting here.