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Jim Sherraden is the head designer, archivist, and manager of the historic Hatch Show Print in Nashville. Hatch is one of the oldest working letterpress print shops in America. Originally creators of vaudeville and circus show posters, they now design and print authentic letterpress posters for country music stars and contemporary rock bands.

Sherraden has been at Hatch since the mid-eighties. He is credited with taking the slowing declining business and revitalizing it, breathing new life into a world that was being suffocated by the rise of computer designed imagery. The shop is more alive now than ever, with employees creating over 600 different hand printed posters during the course of typical year.

Sherraden himself creates unique, one-of-a-kind pieces of artwork called monoprints, using historic woodblocks and type from the Hatch Print archives. He describes these prints as “a creative partnership with all of the great designers and woodcarvers who have worked at Hatch Show Print.”

We are incredibly excited to have Jim here in Charlotte for our Letterpress Fest week. He’ll be participating in two of our events—on Monday night, February 13, he’ll be speaking as part of our TALKabout series, and on Tuesday he’ll be a featured on our Design Unplugged round table discussion.

Check out the short video below from Nashville Public Television. It’s a profile of Hatch Show Print, and has some great insight into the philosophy behind what they do. If you look carefully, you can also see how Jim Sherraden creates his monoprints from pieces of larger blocks.