Type calendar
‘A fresh font a day… keeps Comic Sans away!’ – the slogan for this year’s Typodarium calendar, and all the incentive printers should need to put it at the top of their Christmas wish-list. Comprised of 366 different fonts by 252 designers from 32 countries, the calendar keeps the dreaded font at bay by suggesting a new typographic curiosity each day and giving tips on where that particular font will be most effectively used. 2012’s calendar is even better than last year’s, says the Typodarium team, as a knowledgeable jury scoured the globe for the most inventive and inspiring typefaces. So, rest assured – you can now banish those Hollyoaks pin-ups and cutesy kitten calenders. With this useful aid to hand, you’ll be the office ‘fount of all knowledge’ in no time at all.
€16.80 (£14); www.slanted.de
Rare first edition books
So, you might be able to get a Kindle for the cost of some rare or first edition books, but you can’t put a price on holding a beautifully-made, well-loved classic in your hands (and annoying the family with geeky comments about historic binding techniques). While the price of some of Maggs’ rare books might test your dedication to the real thing, Maggs Rare Books also has a good stock of reasonably-priced popular authors such as Dickens, Austen, and Woolf – the fine first edition of A Haunted House and Other Stories pictured, for example, which was printed at The Hogarth Press, set up and run by Leonard and Virginia Woolf themselves. Maggs can be found at 50 Berkeley Square, London. As one of the oldest and largest dealers of antiquarian, first edition, autographed and rare books and manuscripts, it can certainly cater for more niche requests, too. Medieval manuscript or century-old naval history book for Christmas, anyone?
Books start at £10 (A Haunted House and Other Stories costs £80); www.maggs.com
Pantone chairs and tins
What to get the printer who has everything? A set of Pantone chairs, of course. These brightly-coloured, fold-away, cushioned chairs might not be quite in-keeping with the décor of the rest of the house (and, really, let’s hope for your sake they’re not), but if you’ve really got the Pantone bug and have a penchant for interior décor that has guests donning their sunglasses when they walk in, you can get your loved one to help you complete the set with snazzy Pantone tins and a Pantone wallstore. The chairs and tins are available in grey, red, turquoise, yellow, green, grey, pink and purple, and the wallstore in yellow, red, grey and turquoise. You can even request a Pantone knitted silk tie. If you must.
Chairs £54, tins £16, wallstore £49; www.notonthehighstreet.com
3D printed baubles
Even the Christmas tree’s not safe from your obsession with all things print this year. These attractive snowflake baubles were designed by Barcelona-based Bernat Cuní, of design agency Cunicode, and are printed thousands of miles away by New York company Shapeways – a perfect demonstration of the potential 3D printing has to connect the design and production processes through 3D data files sent over great distances. The decorations are available in white, red and black, and will add a strikingly modern twist to your Christmas décor theme. Although they use a minimum of materials, the stiffness of the snowflakes’ verticals is maximised by their triangulated structure. So, no broken baubles come next Christmas. We wonder how long it’ll be before someone comes up with a 3D printed Christmas tree? It would certainly make less mess…
$8.07 (£5); www.shapeways.com
Chocolate letterpress
While it’s likely that these chocolate letters will be devoured more quickly than you can exclaim, "Ah-hah, that looks like Fagmo Mono Bold font", fans of letterpress will no doubt be impressed by German company Typolade’s attention to detail. The letters are designed to look just like the ‘hot metal’ old type case letters, and present-buyers can choose between the historical typesetting of Gutenberg or the ‘easy reading’ version. Any message can be ordered (though, of course, this all depends on how much you want to pay and just how gushy your sentiments are), and the letters are handmade by selected chocolatiers with a minimum of 60% cocoa. It costs €0.70 (59p) per letter if ordering one to 99 letters and €0.60 (51p) if ordering 100 or more. Packaging is an extra euro (more if it’s gift-wrapped) and orders must be at least €20 (£17).
From €20 (£17); www.typolade.de
Bookbinding course
Finished products pop out of machines so easily these days that it’s easy to forget just how clever those who hand-make them are. It’s also easy to forget just how satisfying it is to make something from scratch. Shepherds’ bookbinding courses are the perfect gift, then, for both those with an interest in book manufacturing and those who love to get stuck into any craft. The courses are held in the basement workshop of the Shepherds Faulkners shop on Southampton Row in Holborn (which could well make it the perfect excuse for you and your loved one to plan a jaunt to London for the weekend). They instruct on how to sew a multisignature book; different covering techniques; and how to create a box to protect and present your book in. The next courses run 19th to 20th January and 16th to 17th February, 10am-4pm.
£160 for two days; www.bookbinding.co.uk
3D printed figurine
These 3D printed ‘mini-mes’ will give all members of the family a giggle on Christmas day (glass of sherry optional), allowing you to swoop in with a "See, I told you print could be fun" remark. The figurines come in a range of different styles, from Christmas to graduation figures, and are available to order online from 3D printers Scuplteo’s website, where a photo is uploaded and clothing and accessories chosen. The team at Sculpteo then set to work using their Formiga P100 by Eos or ZPrinter 650 by ZCorp to build up successive layers of solid material to create your ‘mini-me’. The figurines are also perfect for a bit of office Secret Santa hilarity (or, perhaps, as voodoo dolls, if office relations start to sour come the new year).
From €59.90 (£51); www.sculpteo.com
Letterpress app
So, you’ve made cocktails, flown a plane and played the piano on your iPad – now it’s time to do some printing. The LetterMPress app for iPad and Mac gives users the experience of working with traditional letterpress wood type, art cuts, and printing press techniques. Users can select and assemble vintage wood type and art images, mix colours and ink the type, select paper, and hand-crank the virtual letterpress to produce graphic designs for prints, posters, books, invitations, greeting cards and photo albums. While any beginners to the craft can enjoy simply having a play with the technology, graphic designers can output to graphics applications and incorporate their masterpieces into larger design projects. LetterMPress is available to download for iPad on the iTunes App Store and for Mac on the Mac App Store. For more information about the product, take a look at
www.lettermpress.com.
$9.99 (£6) for Mac, $5.99 (£4) for iPad; www.itunes.com
Typeface memory game
Tired of charades? Decided life’s too short for Monopoly? Then start dropping some subtle hints that this typographic memory game is really what you’d like to be doing come that Christmas-Day no-man’s-land between lunch and when all of the good telly gets going. The game includes 25 variations of the letter ‘A’, each in a different font, and the winner is the player who matches the most letters with their identical card by remembering where the downturned cards are placed. With typographic information about each letter included on each card, the game is informative as well as fun – although perhaps this phrase wouldn’t be the most effective way of selling it to the kids.
€19.90 (£17); www.bispublishers.nl
Letterpress necklace
Finally, a present that combines your two biggest passions in life: printing and being a trendsetting fashionista. Make sure you’re head and shoulders above everyone in the printroom style stakes (while also, of course, making sure health and safety guidelines are rigorously observed), with this letterpress necklace from New York jewellery designer Erica Weiner. Originally used on hand-cranked Vandercook Proof Presses, these pieces of moveable iron type were recovered from the New York Center for Book Arts, where they had been consigned to a bin ready to be melted and re-cast. Plated in 14K gold and hung from a 22-inch gold-plated brass figaro chain, the type now make the perfect gift for printers of the fairer sex, and can be fashioned into a charm necklace using whichever two letters the wearer or present-buyer requests. Perhaps, though, this isn’t quite what long-suffering partners of print fanatics had in mind when they requested something romantic and sparkly for Christmas…
$75 (£48), www.ericaweiner.com
