Last week’s letterpress demo was a new and interesting project for me. It was a lot of work, but satisfying in the end. When Professor Licastro instructed that we would be using the definition of media to practice our letter press, I did not think it would be very challenging. I was wrong. In fact, my partner and I achieved this goal in steps. First I read my sentence aloud, and then he read it to proofread. Then, he pulled letters from each section and put them in order in which I would receive the next word in the sentence. As he gave me a word, my job was to place the type in the holder. Even this was difficult. The letters must be set in a particular way that is essentially a mirrored letter. This way the letters can be expressed right side up when typed onto the paper. It was mentally challenging for me to know that my letters were in the right places, or the difference between a W and a M. I got better once I got the hang of finding the nicks. Half way though the sentence, my partner and I switched roles. I never imagined that, as a college student, I would need this much help writing a sentence. Once my partner and I finally finished placing all of our letters and tabs in its place, it was time to press. My favorite part was at the end when we mixed paint based on the color we wanted our text to be and actually got to press a few of my own. I enjoyed seeing other groups’ press in different fonts. The letterpress demo was such an exciting experience because no one, outside of this class, can say that they’ve done anything like this before. The experience makes me appreciate the invention of typewriters and keyboards much much more!