The printing technology Prelogram uses to personalise note books – Linotype or mechanical typesetting – was a truly revolutionary development in the history of print and publishing. Here’s some more information about Linotype and why the Prelogram print team still uses it. Shop personalised note books When the Lindisfarne Gospels were made 1,300 years ago, […]

UPDATE: our hot metal typesetting machine was a huge hit at Clerkenwell Design Week, personalising thousands of notebooks for Design Week attendees. We’ll be bringing the machine to future events in London. In the meantime, our huge range of notebooks which can be personalised are here. All the notebooks ship for free next day delivery. […]

Reports of the death of the mysterious ETAOIN SHRDLU have been much exaggerated: last sighted around 1985, he’s alive and well in West Yorkshire. ETAOIN SHRDLU is not, of course, a real person. It’s the combination of letters used by Linotype operators to fill up a line of type when a mistake is made or […]

We have probably the world’s largest collection of operational Intertype machines. Two of the machines are in daily use, casting type using brass matrices and molten type metal. The type is used to create personalised notebooks: enter a name or other words online and we’ll set a slug of type which is used to blind […]

We have probably the world’s largest collection of operational mechanical typesetting machines. The machines are used daily, setting type from molten type metal. The type is used to create personalised journals: enter a name or other words online and we’ll set a slug of type which is used to blind deboss the cover of the […]

In 2011 Urban Cottage Industries secured the future of the UK’s largest collection of Linotype and letterpress machinery. We love traditional printing and had to make a donation when we found out about ‘Los Ultimos Endless Letterpress’, a prospective independent documentary about letterpress printing in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Just a few days after our donation we were sobre […]

Since this journal post, we’ve sold out of the first print run of gift vouchers. But we still have ‘blanks’ which can be foiled with the value of the voucher and a code. Get in touch for more information. Original post: Our gift vouchers came off the presses yesterday and they are nothing less than […]

Loose type – the sort of type set that has been set by hand in Europe since Gutenberg in the 15th century – has an intrinsic beauty that is hard to define. It is by turns tactile, intricate, weighty and shows its history through the colour residue on the type. SHOP NOTEBOOKS PERSONALISED USING TYPE […]