Polymer Plate technology came into being around the 1950’s, nearly 400 years after the introduction of the printing press. Originally developed as an alternative to the then emerging offset printing technology, polymer is now used by a large number of letterpress printers as a way to do graphics and text.
The plate is designed on the computer using software like Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign, and then a press-quality PDF is sent to a plate processing service. A film negative is made, then the film is exposed to an undeveloped polymer plate, after which the plate is washed out. Anywhere UV light penetrates the film negative, the polymer on the plate is hardened and anything not exposed to UV light is washed away, creating a printing plate that can be used in letterpress work. The plate is then affixed to a base (in my case a magnetic PatMag base) and mounted in the chase for printing in the press.
Many letterpress printers today use polymer because there are few limits on design when using a computer to create the layout, and because they don’t have to invest in metal type and deal with composition and distribution. Polymer plates usually last a few years before beginning to break down, so they can be used multiple times. I’ve avoided polymer up until now, largely due to my love for traditional methods and the tactile feel of composition with lead type. Nevertheless, I’m no Luddite (despite what my friends say...) so I’ve recently signed up for a class in continuing education at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) called “Contemporary Letterpress,” team-taught by the rather capable duo of Monique and Grendl. We created our first design two weeks ago, and had plates made. We printed samples last week and I then asked to have my plate cut away from the larger plate so that I could take it home and print with it. Our first project was a business card, here are some pictures of me and my friend Mike P. printing with it at home.
