Erin Beckloff is a letterpress printer, designer, educator, and filmmaker (Pressing On, 2017) who preserves anecdotal and technical knowledge of printing history and culture with a focus on education and community. She is an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Miami University. She received her MFA in Graphic Design from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Beckloff has presented at ATypI Antwerp, two Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum Wayzgoose conferences, UCDA Design Education Summit, Type@Cooper New York, College Book Art Association Conferences, as well as taught workshops and lectured at universities across the US and UK.
Star Cluster represents the idea that history is a web of connections between people through time. The multigenerational letterpress community’s expansiveness through time is like a gravitationally bound star cluster. Referencing a NASA photograph of a star cluster (globular cluster NGC 1898), I created the composition in Adobe Illustrator from scans of my type collection. The print was created with metal rule cut and spaced to create long curves; wood type including texture dots from Moore Wood Type; metal circles/ornaments; and metal type Greeting Monotone, inked in a split fountain and rotated 90 degrees for four overlapping impressions.
