Portsmouth Press
Portsmouth Press is an uppercase display font forged in Portsmouth, UK. Built from hand-printed wood type blocks using a historic Barrett 1812 letterpress, it preserves the texture and irregularities of the original oil-printed letters. Digitised and refined in Glyphs, it is a tribute to analogue typography.
2025Process
The process began with access to a rare Barrett 1812 letterpress in Portsmouth—only three are known to still exist worldwide. Using vintage wooden type blocks and thick oil-based ink, a series of prints were manually pulled.
The wood blocks, some scarred and worn by age, were arranged by hand and printed on newsprint. Their natural imperfections became the core aesthetic of the typeface.
The drawer holding the type blocks—an archive of form and use.
A typographic mystery followed. Adobe Capture failed to identify any digital match for the letterforms, confirming their uniqueness. This gave further reason to preserve and digitise them into a working font.
The prints were scanned, vectorised, and redrawn in Glyphs, preserving the quirks of the original impressions. Portsmouth Press is uppercase-only, with no punctuation or numerals. Built to honour its material history, it's ideal for posters, titles, and bold typographic statements.
Forged in Portsmouth. Printed in oil. Preserved in code.
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