Derek Lamb will be the first to admit that manoeuvring a one-tonne iron press and using individual letter pieces to print words is not the most efficient of processes.
But in the digital age, where brevity and speed are often revered, he is gladly bucking the trend by keeping the centuries-old art of letterpress alive.
"The thing that draws me is the tradition … the romance of the process," he said.
"People like that deep impression in the paper, where they can actually feel … there's been a physical process."
Among the presses in the workshop are rows of large wooden letters, trays of small metal ones, tubs and pots of ink — and piles of books.
Each slim volume represents hundreds of hours of work by Mr Lamb, who arranged the letters, inked and printed each page by hand.
"It really is like running a marathon," he said.
"I have to plan out the layout meticulously … there are all these measurements you have to do to place the type perfectly on the page."
He said families often visited his Rockhampton workshop during open days, leaving young children marvelling at the old technology.
"One small child thought it was a time machine.
"They're always kind of blown away … [saying], 'Oh, wow! This can happen without a computer'."
Reward is worth the work
Describing himself as "a voracious reader", Mr Lamb said he was always fascinated by typography.
Seeing presses being used for university printmaking classes became the gateway to researching the method's history.
"I just had ambitions to get a little tabletop press for a start … then I got a little more ambitious."
That's when he found an Alexandra hand press for sale in New South Wales that was built in London in 1887.
The press uses the same method the printing press inventor, Johannes Gutenberg, used in the 1440s, in which movable pieces of type were combined line by line to create a page of text.
In the 12 years since Mr Lamb transported the huge machine home to central Queensland, he's printed several limited-edition books.
Some copies are housed in rare book collections in Oxford, Cambridge and the National Library of Ireland.
Mr Lamb also designs art posters.
He said while they required less precision than fine print books, most of the work was in setting up the press.
"I print with wood type a lot … it's over a century old and has had a lot of hard use.
"Sometimes it works the right way the first time, sometimes I might be here all day setting it up, but it's rewarding when you do finally pull a good print."
Preserving the past
Mr Lamb refined his technique through trial and error, but for people like Bob Lockley, letterpress was a natural extension of life in the print room.
Mr Lockley started his apprenticeship in 1966 as a compositor at a Parramatta print site.
It was the tail end of the industry's shift from letterpress to offset printing, a method of mass production.
Compositors set all the pages by hand before printing, which was handled by different tradesmen.
"It was still all on lead and hot metal," he said.
"It was a nightmare, but it was a good trade at the time and highly paid."
Just before he retired in 2017, Mr Lockley joined the Penrith Museum of Printing.
He's now the president and among the team of volunteers who showcase the dozens of working presses and print machines housed at the western Sydney museum.
"We just want to preserve this history to show people how it's done," Mr Lockley said.
The museum also runs courses — something Mr Lockley said proved popular, especially with young women and those using it for wedding stationery.
"We're seeing a bit of a revival … like vinyl records."
Traditional methods live on
Both Mr Lamb and Mr Lockley want to see future generations take up letterpress — even if it means putting a fresh spin on the tradition.
"There are people who produce beautiful traditional books," Mr Lamb said.
"[Others] call themselves sloppy printers deliberately, and they do some amazing stuff. They fling the ink around everywhere."
He said the limitations of letterpress often made it an attractive artistic outlet.
"On a computer, you've got every typeface known to humanity," Mr Lamb said.
"With letterpress … if I want 24-point Times New Roman italic bold, I've got to have a tray of that [type]."
