Letraset was a company known mainly for manufacturing sheets of typefaces and other artwork elements using the

dry transfer Dry transfers (also called rub-ons or rubdowns) are decals that can be applied without the use of water or other solvent. The decal itself is on a backing material such as paper or plastic sheeting much like a transparency. The dry transfer is ...

method. Letraset has been acquired by the Colart group and become part of its subsidiary Winsor & Newton.

Corporate history

Letraset was founded in London in 1959, with the launch of the Letraset Type Lettering System. In 1961, Letraset came out with their dry transfer lettering system, which pioneered the technique. Starting in 1964, Letraset also applied the dry rub-down transfer technique to create a children's game called Action Transfers, which would later develop into Kalkitos (marketed by Gillette) and many other series of transferable figures that were very popular up to the 1980s.LETRASET was squired by the Swedish stationary company Esselte until 2000 when it was sold to a Management buyout headed up by Martin Gibbs and Michael Travers. Eventually sold to ColArt in 2012. Seeing a decline in the sales of its materials in the early 1990s, Letraset moved into the desktop publishing industry, releasing software packages such as ImageStudio and ColorStudio for the Macintosh. These never saw widespread success. However, as Letraset held the rights to their fonts that had been popular on the dry transfer sheets, it made sense to enter the digital font market (see, for example, Charlotte Sans). Letraset thus began releasing many fonts in formats such as PostScript. Fonts from designers such as Martin Wait, Tim Donaldson and David Quay were released, and many can be found on online retailers such as Fontshop. Some fonts retain 'Letraset' in their title, whereas others have been renamed by their new vendors such as ITC. A selection of fonts is still sold from its website, separated into fonts from Fontek and Red Rooster. Software include Manga Studio EX and Envelopes, a

plug-in Plug-in, plug in or plugin may refer to: * Plug-in (computing) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. ** Audio plug-in, adds audio signal processing features ** Photoshop plugin, a piece of softwar ...

for Adobe Illustrator. Letraset is the maker of the refillable Tria markers, formerly Pantone Tria markers, which have a three-nib design and 200 colors. Additionally, Letraset offers three lines of dual-tipped markers, the alcohol based ProMarker and FlexMarker lines, each with 148 mostly different colors, and the water based AquaMarkers with 60 colors, all of which have gained wide acceptance in the hobby and crafting communities. Letraset was based in Le Mans, France, having previously been based in Ashford, Kent, until being acquired in June 2012 by the Colart group and becoming part of its subsidiary Winsor & Newton.

Cultural history

The dry rub-down transfer techniques was used by the punk movement because of its ease of manipulation, its low price and the quality of the rendered layout. Letraset's ease of use and widespread availability aligned with the do it yourself value of this movement by allowing punks to create designs independent from printers and publishers.

Product

In common usage, the name Letraset originally referred to sheets of transfer lettering which were originally manufactured as a wet process in 1959, with each character selected and cut from a sheet, placed face-down on a small silk screen frame and wetted with a paint brush to soften and release the

gum arabic Gum arabic, also known as gum sudani, acacia gum, Arabic gum, gum acacia, acacia, Senegal gum, Indian gum, and by other names, is a natural gum originally consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the ''Acacia'' tree, ''Senegalia se ...

adhesive which held it. The frame was then turned over and the letter located over the artwork, and the character pressed into contact with the page, with the mounting base slid away as with model aircraft transfers. Later, in 1961, the process was simplified, and a

able lettering system was developed. The range of available typefaces expanded, incorporating both classic and contemporary type designs of the period. Letraset sheets were used extensively by professional and amateur graphic designers,

architects An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and artists in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. As a result of its relative affordability, and because of its ease of use, it also came to be used by printers, design studios and advertising agencies. In the late 1980s Letraset started to be replaced by desktop publishing. Today Letraset sheets are traded on eBay and elsewhere, and sometimes used so that a designer can avoid a digital look. The name is also often used to refer generically to sheets of

lettering of any brand. This technique was very widespread for lettering and other elements before the advent of the phototypesetting and laser computer techniques of

word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

and desktop publishing. Currently, Letraset's line of print patterns and textures are more commonly used than its lettering.

Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum filler text has been featured on Letraset advertisements for decades. There are some indications its use predates Letraset, but nothing concrete has surfaced prior to Letraset's popularizing it.

References

External links