From the carved cherry blocks of Tang-era China to soy-ink Risographs in Brooklyn basements—an open atlas of printing methods, their history, materials, and process.
Free or near-free, beginner-friendly, made from things you already own or can grab at a hardware store. Pick one and start today.
A flattened juice carton is a perfect intaglio plate — just scratch and print.
A grocery-store meat tray, pressed with a pencil — the easiest relief block in the world.
A green twig, chewed at the end, becomes a perfectly responsive ink brush.
Three paints, ten minutes, from your spice rack.
The original paint — colored dirt and tree sap.
Two thrift-store frames and a square of window screen.
A scrap of corrugated cardboard, sealed and gessoed, becomes a real painting panel.
The cheapest press in the world — heavy books and two boards.
The oldest method of printing on paper.
Gutenberg's revolution—still alive in fine press shops.
Drawing with grease on stone.
Acid bites the line that ink fills.
Pure line, cut by hand into metal.
Ink pushed through a stencilled mesh.
The workhorse of commercial print.
Microscopic droplets, jetted on demand.
Static electricity, toner powder, fuser heat.
Digital duplicator turned cult art tool.
The earliest paper photograph.
The most permanent photograph ever made.
Pigment, gum, and dichromate—painterly photography.
Continuous-tone printing without halftone dots.
The classroom and samizdat duplicator.
Bonding tissue paper to a print as it's pressed.
Raised, glossy ink—the business-card classic.
Metallic leaf pressed into paper with heat.
Paper sculpted by pressure alone.
Ink that solidifies under ultraviolet light.
Paper that's printed as it's formed.
Mexico City's people's printshop.
Brazil's chapbook woodcut tradition.
Yoruba cassava-paste resist on indigo cloth.
Cuba's hand-pulled film posters.