Typographer’s craft and hand-printed books conceived as cultural heritage at Taller Gráfica de Comala, Mexico

Abstract

In the text, there is a reflection on the typographer's craft in the Taller Gráfica de Comala as a conceptual analysis on the arts and crafts of the handmade book and its potential recognition as part of the intangible cultural heritage and, as from this idea, its editorial work is developed considering the book printed by hand,  an ancestral profession of the typographer and the recovery of equipment, machines, techniques, traditional knowledge as a possibility to establish a line of continuity of the legacy of the old print with the present. The historical context of the Mexican book and some printers that can be assumed as antecedents of this micro editorial are described; the antecedents of the Workshop, its aspirations, its evolution and some examples of its production; The people who collaborate in the recovery of the ancestral trade of the typographer, the means of production, techniques and historical equipment used for the manufacture of the copies are also presented and, finally, some considerations are made by way of conclusions.