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The Print Shop at the End of the World

The Print Shop at the End of the World is a reimagination of some of the earliest Finnish printing types for contemporary use at the Letterpress House in Turku.

The project continues the lineage of the first Finnish printing press – the Academiæ Aboensis, established in Turku in 1642. The Academy press and all its material was lost in the Great Fire of Turku in 1827. Books and prints were later returned to Turku from universities across Europe, providing first-hand sources for a typeface revival.

Well, not so much a direct revival as an amalgamatic fictional reenactment of the intoxicated masters and dark horse typographers of the Baroque printing trade at the edge of civilization. The project is a collaboration between type designer Frode Konstantin Helland and letterpress printer Sakari Männistö.

Speaker

Frode Helland

Frode Helland is a visual artist, graphic designer and type designer—a reader, observer and maker of letterforms, drawing upon historical research, socio-cultural perspectives and creative collaboration to shape and challenge visual language. He graduated with a Master’s degree in graphic design and illustration from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2023. Frode makes up one third of the Norwegian type foundry Monokrom Skriftforlag, a tiny, not-so-cool, and painfully slow, independent publisher of original high quality typefaces.

Sakari Männistö 2025
Speaker

Sakari Männistö