Common Press

Common Press The letterpress and book arts studio at the University of Pennsylvania The Common Press is the letterpress printing studio at the University of Pennsylvania.

The press is a collaboration of interests at Penn, including writing (Kelly Writers House), print culture (the Rare Book & Manuscript Library) and visual arts and design (the School of Design).

Children's Fest today!
05/04/2026

Children's Fest today!

Find someone who looks at you the way is looking at our new ink balls at Common Press, with many thanks to Sara Karpins...
04/28/2026

Find someone who looks at you the way is looking at our new ink balls at Common Press, with many thanks to Sara Karpinski of the Franklin Printing Office for sharing her expertise.

Cloth collected from the community to beautiful handmade paper sheets in one day, with our new mould and deckle and our ...
04/19/2026

Cloth collected from the community to beautiful handmade paper sheets in one day, with our new mould and deckle and our new vat. Undoable without genius and chaos. 250 more sheets to go.

A very cool title page from a forth coming title printed Common Press by Professor Hogarth's capstone class at Penn.
03/26/2026

A very cool title page from a forth coming title printed Common Press by Professor Hogarth's capstone class at Penn.

We got the keys to start our month-long residency to make paper for our Declaration replicas at the studio (the yellow b...
03/12/2026

We got the keys to start our month-long residency to make paper for our Declaration replicas at the studio (the yellow building behind the magnolia tree) at . We'll be using the rags we collected to make paper pulp and pull sheets of 16 x 20 inch paper to print on over the summer. This location is beautiful and historical... It is the first location of papermaking in the United States (they used the water power of the creek seen here!). Join us on Saturday 3/14 from 2 to 4 p.m. for an open house! Link in the bio.

We had a mould and deckle made for our Declaration of Independence project, and it arrived from WI today. We will use th...
02/20/2026

We had a mould and deckle made for our Declaration of Independence project, and it arrived from WI today. We will use this beautiful tool to make sheets the size of the original Declaration, using pulp from our community rag collection

And the papermaking begins! We are sorting the rags we collected to figure out which are 100% cotton. A fashion design g...
02/20/2026

And the papermaking begins! We are sorting the rags we collected to figure out which are 100% cotton. A fashion design grad student dropped by to tell us how to tell what is cotton!

Catch the evolution of the typos! For Professor Friedman's English class, Shakespeare in Love, students set the prologue...
02/10/2026

Catch the evolution of the typos! For Professor Friedman's English class, Shakespeare in Love, students set the prologue to Romeo and Juliet and experienced first hand how metal type setting can change the transmission of language.

Printing revolutionary words at Common Press today! Come by and print your own.
01/30/2026

Printing revolutionary words at Common Press today! Come by and print your own.

Resetting the Declaration in our own words today at Common Press. And revolutionary poster printing. Stop by!
01/30/2026

Resetting the Declaration in our own words today at Common Press. And revolutionary poster printing. Stop by!

Did you know some prints of the first edition of the Declaration are missing words, which apparently fell out during the...
01/27/2026

Did you know some prints of the first edition of the Declaration are missing words, which apparently fell out during the printing process over the night of July 4, 1776? Letterpress printing is a core part of our country's history. Learn more tonight at a lecture with preeminent Declaration scholar Emily Sneff, NOW ONLINE and ready to help you fight cabin fever. Link in bio!

Join us tonight 1/27 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. to learn about the fascinating history of printing and distribution of the first edition of the Declaration.

Dr. Emily Sneff, a leading expert on the history of the Declaration of Independence, will share some of the stories behind the first printings of the founding document of the United States. From spelling errors and typesetting challenges to copies of the Declaration that ended up in unexpected hands, this presentation will explore the process of declaring independence. It will connect the first printings to the core themes and material focus of the Common Press's America 250 programming, The Typography of Independence.

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