Katie Beard’s metal typesetting skills recognised nationally

Metal typesetter and QEST Alumni Katie Beard has taken home gold at the British Book Design and Production Awards.

The 2022 QEST Scholar’s book ‘Letters from Titanic’ won first prize in the Best Limited Edition and Fine Binding category.

Katie produced a book of letters that were written before, during and after the Titanic tragedy in 1912.

All the type was created using the Monotype system, by setting the text on a pneumatic keyboard, then casting the type in metal and letterpress-printing the pages on an original Heidelberg cylinder press.

Katie said she was thrilled to have won the award.

“To have the endangered craft of hot metal typesetting recognised in this way is fantastic, I’m so thrilled to be working within this field, and hugely grateful for all the support from QEST,” she said.

“There are only a handful of artisan workshops still creating books this way, most having been closed following the invention of digital typesetting.

“My QEST Scholarship enabled me to study and train in this dying art, which is on Heritage Crafts’ Red List of Endangered Crafts.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed being so close to the words, they are incredibly emotive and physically handling each character has enabled me to present these personal letters with the attention and respect they deserve.”