Our time travel draws to an end, we have arrived at our destination: the here & now, the year 2024. Many a situation cannot be pinned to one particular year anymore. In the early days master lithographer and colleague Hans Ulrich passed on a type case to me containing Garamond. It had been saved from a place that had been …

A long time ago, when machines did not yet exist, all things were handmade: pots, shoes, furniture, books, tools. All this was made by hand, manu-factured in the true sense of the word, there was no other way. If all those things were to be made to do the job, they were supposed to do, properly, these things needed to …

On my daily commute to the studio I pass by a tree high on a bank by the side of the road. It is an old fruit tree its crown almost at a right angle to the trunk. As if weighed down by hardship over a long period of time. This tree is a landmark and has its very own …

We have started house hunting. In the years to come we will visit what feels like to be countless old pubs, former workplaces of carpenters or other trades and farmhouses. We will learn about how houses were built here, the region of Westphalia and Münsterland, which is so different to where we have been living so far, in southwest Germany. …

This year is all about the artist‘s book „Mir fehlt ein Wort“ (I am lacking a word), paying homage to Kurt Tucholsky 75 years after his death. He was an astute observer and remains a contemporary witness of the years that resulted in the Nazi regime in Germany, a power that swept across the whole of Europa and eventually plunging …

This year burnishing is again on the menu, so to speak. An elderly lady, a former art and biology teacher gets in touch. While studying in the early post-war years, she made a number of wood etchings, and, due to the lack of paper, she could only print the copies for handing in to her supervisor, never having printed any …

A publishing house/printing office is giving up some of their type cabinets and metal type, in order to make space for a hightech printing machine. Gradually the new place is filling up. I go round measuring, and, yes, with a little reshuffling it can be done. Two members of staff transport the eight type cabinets to my place in a …

In my childhood every now and then little boxes would surface from somewhere, which were in a special way fascinating for me. Inside the boxes there would be delicate fans artistically painted in Chinese style, wooden chopsticks beautifully decorated with mother-of-pearl, or tiny animals carved from jade. The boxes came from the Far East, most likely from China or Japan, …

The 20th century is on its last legs and nearing its end. Letterpress printing using movable type came into use proper by the end of the 15th century – greatly helped by Johannes Gutenberg. During the 1970s it quickly lost its dominance. New printing techniques were quicker, did not need as much space and would involve less staff. Being able …