San Francisco Center For The Book

SFCB is great! It has wonderful exhibitions, instructors, and awesome events like Steam Roller Printing Festival. Above all, it is a non-​profit spreading the joy of the printed word! You can learn all kinds of things here in a beautiful facility.

I’ve always wanted to learn calligraphy, so when I got engaged, I thought it would be the perfect excuse to take a calligraphy class. I took the 3-​week Hand Lettering workshop with Billy Hutchinson in February 2014. Billy is a gem, and gave us all vintage pens to start our calligraphy career. There was a lot of information packed into the 3 classes, and we went through several types of fonts. At first it just didn’t click with me, but after enough practice, I finally had a calligraphy breakthrough. Most of my friends thought we had hired a professional calligrapher to do our invitation envelopes! Success!

I really have to give the SFCB a 5 star review here. They are an amazing non-​profit resource for individuals looking to learn about book binding, paper and printing! They are very organized and the staff are nice and very helpful.
I’ve taken a series of letterpress classes and foil stamping classes — each series certified me to use the machine I was learning on. I’m a digital designer by trade but looking to possibly move into designing and producing more prints, so this is a perfect setup. Renting out their equipment for $ 10-​$ 20 is a great deal, considering that a letterpress itself can cost thousands of dollars and needs space — not something easily found in San Francisco.
I’ve already printed a handful of wedding invites and party invitations here and look forward to printing more!

I dropped by SF Center for the Book because of The Sketchbook Project that they were hosting July 26 – 28. I really didn’t have any idea what this center did but once I was inside, they had some pretty amazing stuff.
On one side, they had what appeared to be a letterpress studio with the works! I think they also teach classes on letterpress printing. Currently, they’re showing Joanna Drucker’s works. I’ve personally never heard of her but her books and artwork are really beautiful.
The receptionist and the staff were so friendly at the front desk too. I highly recommend dropping by if you’re a fan of letterpress printing and the art behind producing books.