January Meeting Nº 3: Recap
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With the craziness of Christmas behind, all of us here at Ligatures wanted to start the New Year off just right. With that in mind, Coach House became the spot for our first meeting of the year. Having only heard of CH, it was a great opportunity to check out one of Toronto’s historical printing houses.
Chris, Kyle, and myself arrived earlier and got a sneak peek at our new meeting spot. When various forms of printing machines surround you, how can you not feel inspired? An original Linotype machine shadows you as you enter the building and despite it not being in working order (unless you want to have hot metal shot at you), was pretty fantastic to see in person. Kevin King, who also works at CH, was kind enough to give everyone a tour of the building as well as demonstrations of some of the printing devices that are currently in use. Seeing the evolution of type through these machines was quite amazing. Moving from the wooden and metal type casts to the use of printing plates gave you a sense of how far we’ve come and further appreciation for lettering itself.
I must say, Ligatures had its best turn out yet! It was amazing to see some reoccurring faces but as well as some new type lovers. A majority of the evening was spent discussing people’s work and sharing some of our current projects. Paul Dotey, an illustrator, was kind enough to bring in samples of his family’s Christmas cards from decades past. Words cannot describe how beautiful these cards were. From the delicate illustrations to the intricate lettering, it gave most of us at the meeting inspiration to have the coolest Christmas cards next year.
One of the biggest moments from the night was some great news that we’ve been keeping hush-hush for the last little bit. With some hard work done on our end (especially by Chris), we’ve convinced Type Camp (typecamp.org) to make a visit to Toronto! This will be its’ first time hosting a meeting in this city, which is pretty awesome. This is a wonderful opportunity for all of us type lovers to get together and learn from the pros! If you’d like more information head to either ligatures.ca or check out www.typecamp.org/camps/
Thank-you to all the people that made it out! It was wonderful to see such dedication to getting this group going and making a real impact on Toronto’s type scene.