LEO (Love Each Other)
Justin Ahrens · 2014 · Letterpress from antique wood type, single-color red on white stock
Three letters, one instruction: LEO, short for Love Each Other. Justin Ahrens set and pulled this print by hand at the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, choosing three mismatched faces from the museum's drawers rather than forcing a single family. A blocky sans L, a fat round O, and a curved slab E with brush-drawn terminals sit shoulder to shoulder, with a small red H mark set high at the right as a nod to the shop. Printed in one hit of red on a soft white sheet, with the ink slightly heavy where the wood is worn. Hamilton began making wood type in Two Rivers in 1880 and grew into the largest wood type manufacturer in the United States, supplying show printers, newspapers, and job shops nationwide. When production wound down, the surviving patterns, pantographs, and more than 1.5 million pieces of type stayed in town and became a museum where the collection is still printed from rather than only displayed. Working there means the type in your hands is the type that printed the last century of American posters.
Love each other.Justin Ahrens
View this poster in The 29 Collection