{"id":364,"date":"2020-06-01T13:28:28","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T13:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lightboxeslettering.com\/exhibition\/?p=364"},"modified":"2020-06-05T11:08:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T11:08:43","slug":"mapping-the-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lightboxeslettering.com\/exhibition\/mapping-the-areas\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping the Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Printing industry trade directories from the 1980s show hundreds of printers in the boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, and neighbouring parts of Clerkenwell, the areas covered by this project. Many of these printers have closed or relocated since then. Our project followed some of these businesses and the experiences of people who worked in them. While Clerkenwell was well known as a focus for the industry due to its proximity to the City, other areas such as Hackney Wick had a large number of printers and print-related businesses. As well as commercial businesses, east London was home to many community print workshops and radical presses, which allowed people to access alternative print sources to use for their own events or to promote political causes. As digital processes began to be used later in the 20th<\/sup> century, the industry as a whole changed. The whole area of east London has undergone huge changes including Olympic 2012 development in Hackney Wick and the Lea Valley, and rocketing land and property prices have pushed many businesses further out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lightboxes and Lettering has included research on printing in Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, with parts of Clerkenwell at the southern borders included, and a range of people from the industry have had oral history interviews recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"1901
London County Council map from 1901 showing distribution of people working in the printing industry. Courtesy of London Metropolitan Archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The late 80s we were in Carpenters Road, which was just printing paradise. There was printers everywhere, every corner, every trading estate, wherever you went there was printers. If you went over for lunch and had a pub lunch, there was loads of printers and you got a lot of your work like that. \u201cOh hello Barry, how are you, ain\u2019t seen you? Oh by the way I\u2019ve got this job\u201d, you know, \u201cCan you get it done for Tuesday, I\u2019ve got 800,000 four pages,\u201d and all that sort of thing. And that\u2019s how it all built up, all the way around, everyone scratched each other\u2019s back.<\/p>Barry Tucker, BMT Print Services, Leyton (formerly BRG in Hackney Wick and Carpenters Road)<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There was Hatton Garden I would walk up. Everywhere, there was printers. There was one across the road; there was a platemakers next door. You only had to walk up the road and all you could hear were Heidelberg cylinders running or folding machines, the crack of the folding machine.<\/p>
Colin Nixon, Eagle House Press, New North Road<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n