Nice to meet you!

Brad Vetter is a designer, letterpress printer, artist, and educator currently based in Louisville, KY. Soon after graduating from Western Kentucky University where he studied graphic design and printmaking, Brad began working at the legendary Hatch Show Print in Nashville, TN. At Hatch, he did everything from sweep the floors to training the interns, all while printing posters for his favorite bands and bringing a fresh new approach to working with the antiquated process of letterpress.

Armed with a printing press and some woodtype, Brad went on to start his own shop, Brad Vetter Design in 2012. Brad Vetter Design strives to push letterpress forward and never stop exploring its possibilities. He began working on digital design projects while never taking off his apron. Now walking the line between analog and digital, Brad’s posters are created with a combination of antique type/presses and a laser engraver. These days, Brad spends his time teaching workshops, designing wine labels & other fun things, printing letterpress show posters, building community, and making art.

Select Client List:

Nike, Fossil, Anthropologie, Ryman Auditorium, Penguin Books, Texas Tourism, Domtar Paper, AARP Magazine, Head Snowboards, Lost Highway Records, Garden & Gun Magazine, Boonville Cider House, Rebel Wine Co, Fatz Cafe, Signal Ridge Vineyard, Brink International (Chili’s), Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Chevy, ETC.

His print work has been shown in such notable venues as the San Francisco MoMA, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Columbia College Center for Book and Paper, and the Danish Museum of Media.

Process: Letterpress

Letterpress is simply "Letters pressed into paper with ink in between". Antique presses (I use a Vandercook Universal 1 circa 1965 and a Golding Pearl No. 3 circa 1890) are used to transfer ink and apply pressure to hand-set movable type and images (a collection of wood and lead type, old advertising cuts and new images cut from wood or linoleum). Each poster is hand-cranked—one print at a time/one color at a time—through the press. Letterpress takes time and its results are rich in color and texture. As we delve deeper into this digital world, it is nice to see, touch, hold, feel and smell something that is made by a human—someone who put love and skill into creating a tangible piece of printed ephemera. 

Lasers!

Today I am using a laser engraver for just about every letterpress project I do. The laser is a tool that allows me to flow seamlessly between digital and analog. I am never designing something 100% digital and just laser cutting and printing those blocks, I prefer to bounce between hand-set type that is proofed before I scan into the computer to manipulate digitally. This process allows me to make images not really made possible by carving, and is much more affordable than polymer or magnesium plates. I am very intrigued by the juxtaposition of using this new technology while printing on these antique presses. The laser is really allowing me to explore letterpress texture and image making in a way that I never thought was possible before.