The Z List: Introducing Mark Pavey

Citing his primary aesthetic influences as mid-century American, British and Swiss Modernism, Mark is a talented designer with a great eye for stylistic details. Channelling his passion for learning new print techniques and developing his craft, the Walthamstow-based designer has also spent four years as a letterpress teacher at the London Centre for Book Arts — while also embarking on multiple fact-finding and research trips.

We asked Mark to tell us a little more about his work and process.

Alongside running my own graphic design practice for the last decade, I’ve always valued putting time aside from my professional work to develop my skills as a printmaker. Working primarily in screenprint and letterpress, the different processes give me a change of pace from client work where I can focus purely on my own work. Since its opening four years ago I have been a tutor at the London Centre for Book Arts in Hackney Wick, teaching both contemporary and traditional Letterpress skills.

 A childhood spent split between skateboarding and hacking apart websites to learn how they functioned lead me to a desire to learn about design from an early age. Discovering letterpress at university scratched all my creative itches and it spurred me on to travel far and wide to learn more about the history and the process of it. On returning from a 2 month trip around the USA interning at the many different print workshops of the states, I was contacted by Simon Goode from the London Centre of Book Arts and have been involved with it since.

I work primarily from my own studio in Walthamstow, East London.

I’ve always enjoyed the immediacy of letterpress printing, so much of the composition and of a print is done by hand so a print will change and evolve as you work through the many limitations and quirks inherent in the medium.

Whether printing with it or making something with it, the changeable nature of wood has always drawn me to it.

I have a large archive of ephemera, magazines and print catalogues from the last century that I normally try to dive into at the start of a project.

In my professional practice I work a lot for charities that support artists with learning disabilities. I’m just beginning to brand and design a site for a new initiative that will aim to connect artists at different stages of their career with all the different events relevant to them across London. Alongside that, each year a group of Letterpress printers across the world participate in a Christmas card exchange, so I’ll be printing something for that soon!

Throughout 2016 I have been working on a series of colour studies prints which I’ll be launching soon on my online store. We have also just confirmed the next batch of “Introduction to Letterpress Printing” day long workshops at the London Centre for Book Arts - 29 January, 25 February, 26 March and 14 May.

I’m absolutely in love with the concrete sculptures of David Umemoto.