Shadi Ayoub is the founder of the 961 Collective, a letterpress printing and hot foil stamping studio in Cleveland, Ohio. Watch as he demonstrates the letterpress process on a Heidelberg Windmill.
Shadi grew up in Beirut, Lebanon where his family owned a modern offset printing press; but he was always drawn to the beauty of the old presses that were rarely used at the back of the print shop because they were “outdated”. He became very fond of those timeless machines, and over time restored most of them back to functionality. He always found the quality of the beautiful prints and textures they produced to be incomparable with modern prints.
Shadi majored in Business Administration at the American University of Beirut but printmaking was always his passion. Years after graduating from the business department, he went back to that same university but this time to teach letterpress as part of their printmaking department.
If you have any questions for Shadi, you can message him via his website: www.the961collective.com
Support for this demo provided by Ohio Arts Council