Commoners Press: these three books (2026)

A series of three participatory workshops exploring contemporary letterpress printmaking

Join us at the Ballarat Craft and Design Week and Melbourne Design Week:

3 workshops, 3 books, 3 sets of printing materials — each chapbook a distinct response to place, theme, and the hands that made it.

At each of the three workshops, participants will engage hands-on in a creative, collaborative printing experience. At each workshop, participants will use three different materials, metal type, graphic wooden blocks and printable LEGO elements to create a shared letterpress artefact: a printed 16-page octavo chapbook.

You'll set type by hand, ink the press, and pull prints alongside other participants — each person contributing elements that are locked together into a single forme and run through the press to create the finished chapbook.

Each workshop can include up to 14 participants and will result in a short print run of an octavo (16pp) format chapbook.

Printed and bound during the workshops, the participants will take home a personal copy of the chapbook.

Letterpress practice invites you to slow down, work small, remain present, and collaborate. BCDW’s Bound evokes the connections between people and disciplines, as well as the physical and material qualities of print. In dialogue with the MDW theme Design the World You Want, this workshop series considers what it means to create something meaningful at a human scale—made by hand, and made together in the presence of others.

The workshop locations: Ballarat’s historic Mining Exchange and Coburg North in Melbourne @ Commoners Press HQ.

Audience: General public. No prior experience is required for these workshops, and they are open to all participants regardless of age or skill level. Children with supervision are welcome.

Price: A$22.49 per participant.

Bring your own lunch. :)

Workshop Dates