Portsmouth Press
Portsmouth Press is an uppercase display font made in Portsmouth, UK. It began as a set of prints pulled by hand from wood type on a Barrett 1812 letterpress, and the digital version, drawn in Glyphs, keeps the texture and irregularities of the original oil prints.
2025Process
The starting point was access to a Barrett 1812 letterpress in Portsmouth, one of only three known to survive. Using vintage wood type and thick oil-based ink, I pulled a series of prints by hand.
The blocks, many of them scarred and worn with age, were set by hand and printed on newsprint. Their wear carried straight into the letterforms.
The drawer holding the wood type.
Adobe Capture found no digital match for the letterforms, which suggested this face had never been digitised. That made the case for preserving it as a working font.
The prints were scanned, vectorised and redrawn in Glyphs, keeping the quirks of each impression. Portsmouth Press is uppercase only, with no punctuation or numerals, and is meant for posters, titles and other display work.
Printed in oil, preserved in code.
Gallery
