North and South

North & South from Anthony Burrill on Vimeo.
film by Dave Sedgwick (2014) 

So today I had one of those 'damn I wish I had done that moments' when I saw this video of a new collaboration between Anthony Burrill, Dave Sedwick of ‘Paste and Print' and Liam Hopkins of ‘Lost Heritage Agency’. 

I love most things print based and I have long been a fan of Mr Burrill’s bright, bold prints, and have had the pleasure of meeting and working with him whilst interning at Outline Editions gallery a few years back where he was showing at the time and he was a lovely as you could have imagined! 
His latest collaboration sees him take the traditional woodblock printing technique and super size it, creating what may possibly be the largest woodblock poster there is. Each letter is 26 inches high and made of solid wood. They were individually printed by Adams of Rye in Sussex on a traditional Heidelberg Cylinder press then pasted onto a billboard in central Manchester. It’s one of those projects where the right people came together and created something really beautiful. 

Over the last few years I have really enjoyed looking at the ways in which letterpress and traditional printing techniques have been brought up to date, it’s no secret that Alan Kitchin is one of my design heroes! But to see the ways in which designers push these techniques and the now pretty much obsolete equipment beyond their traditional uses to see what they are capable of is really exciting. Anthony not only has done something which hadn’t been done before but created a great piece of public art in the heart of Manchester and I am considering purchasing a print of one of the letters myself! 

http://www.anthonyburrill.com/purchase/n

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