Tour de Lead Graffiti 2012

Apologies for duplications of this note.

Lead Graffiti is a letterpress studio in Newark, Delaware. We love letterpress, spontaneous printing-from-the-hip projects, the Tour de France, the chance to make new friends, and good excuses to put ink on really luscious paper.

Tour de Lead Graffiti first ran during the summer of 2011 and it is one of the most satisfying projects we have ever worked on in our 30+ years as designers and design teachers. We were interested in the idea of endurance letterpress while paralleling the endurance cycling of the Tour de France. It was far more uplifting than draining, perhaps giving us a bit of insight into how the cyclists can do it. Once we got in the groove and passed the first couple of days, things sailed along easier than you would think, given that we were averaging about 15 hours a day devoted to the project and right at 5 runs per poster. We spent 345 hours spread over 23 days or a bit more than 15 hours a day working on Tour de Lead Graffiti 2011.

Our plan this year is to produce 26 clamshell portfolios consisting of 23 posters (each about 15” x 22”). Printed at Lead Graffiti, slowly & patiently via letterpress, there is one poster for each stage of the 2012 Tour de France (opening day prologue, Saturday, July 1 through Sunday, July 22) plus its two rest days (they can rest, but we won’t). We will also put about five of each poster aside to sell individually.

After watching the Tour de France live on TV each morning (roughly 8:30 am - 12:30 pm), we’ll choose moments (i.e. crashes, great feats of strength or endurance, surviving breakaways, who won, who lost, who got the Yellow Jersey, etc.) that made an impact on that day’s stage and create a Lead Graffiti style visual interpretation. These moments will be represented through the arrangement of wood & metal type, cycling-related objects, and other printable surfaces. In the end we will have a poster documenting each stage in ink on paper printed slowly and patiently via letterpress.

Additionally for the complete clamshell edition, we will produce a title page, a colophon, and a page with descriptions of each poster. Each signed and lettered set will be enclosed in a handmade clamshell portfolio covered with Lead Graffiti pastepaper.

Money received through Kickstarter will help fund the material costs of the project, including the purchase of Somerset Textured White 300 gsm paper, raw materials for making the clamshell portfolio, and two new typefaces being made specifically for this project.

There is also the option each day for two additional people to come to the studio and work with us on the day’s poster. Everyone signs the poster and you become part of the project. Last year a few libraries to buy the clamshell edition included The British Library’s American Collection, the Clark Library at UCLA, and Special Collections at the University of Delaware. This could be a way for current students or new graduates to both get some experience on a Vandercook as well as get a few lines on your résumé.

We will upload daily updates to our website and our Facebook page ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lead-Graffiti/170451196314154 ) from Saturday, June 30 - Monday, July 23.

You can see the results from last year at http://leadgraffiti.com/news/tour-de-lead-graffiti/ . If you click on the image it will take you to the next one. Be sure to check out the composite print with 103 runs.

You can also check out our project on Kickstarter at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leadgraffiti/tour-de-lead-graffiti-2... which has a fairly well done video explaining a few of the posters from last year and how they came to be.

Check it out, visit us from June 30 - July 22 and if you are along the Atlantic Seaboard buy a day and come print and be part of Tour de Lead Graffiti 2012.

Feel free to ask questions or to be in touch.

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