London Kerning

For over 500 years, the center of financial and judicial power in England has grown and remained in and near a square mile of buildings called the City of London. And at the heart of it is arguably the art of printing.

From a modest start in a small shop founded by Wynkyn de Worde near Fleet Street and Henry VIII’s Bridewell Palace, printing’s importance in the City grew ever larger. It cemented London as the center of empire during expansion, and the center of media and money in the modern era.

That history has been well preserved through two institutions, the St Bride Library and The Type Archive. But their future in the city remains uncertain. Faced with the constant pressure of urban growth, letterpress printers and type designers attempt to remain in a place that remembers its roots.

Join author Glenn Fleishman’s jaunt around London, visiting collections and meeting printers, designers, archivists, historians, and contemporaries — and especially examining and discussing the work of type designer Berthold Wolpe (1905–1989), who helped shape the face of lettering in London — as he faces the uncertain future of London’s legacy of printing in London Kerning.