The bright red letters of the Westin Leipzig Hotel glow over the city like a beacon, guiding guests back to their beds with elegant serifs. What a font! And how fitting that when you look out onto the spectacular view from your window, and lead your eye down Kathe-Kollowitz-Strasse, jutting off the north-west side of Leipzig's medieval center, you might be able to discern a historic building trimmed in mustard. Four floors house the Museum of the Printing Arts, where a dazzling display of presses, plates, punches, and metal blocks called matrices, each adorned with a single letter, tell a fascinating tale of typesetting.
Our exploration began on the first level. Antique tools for book printing, and ancient matrices dating from the 16th century were laid out lovingly. A veritable printing timeline composed of massive machinery, covered the vast second floor. The Columbia press, the first press made of iron instead of wood, stood beside an early Platen press, the Liberty press, which utilized inked rollers. On the top floor a friendly staff member lead us to his matrice making machine and demonstrated the production of the Latin letter he was working on, an 8 point ash, which is a and e together. I couldn't keep my eyes off the silvery liquid mixture of antimony, lead, and tin, heated to 380 degrees celsius, and pumped into the mold to create the matrice. But the prize moment of the day was when he handed us each one of the tiny objects. I put mine in my pocket. The perfect souvenir.
