If you’re in Nashville or anywhere in the continental United States, then sooner or later, you’re destined to run into the designs and images of the signature unique art that is Hatch Show Print. As one of the oldest letterpress print shops that is still fully functional, Hatch Show Print has introduced the public to a popular poster style created for musical talent like Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and Wynonna Judd. Originally created to promote early forms of entertainment like the circus and vaudeville, Hatch Show Print continues to push the artistic envelope when crafting their hand made, hand cranked, one of a kind posters. It all began in 1875 with William H. Hatch who relocated his small Wisconsin print shop to Nashville and taught the trade to his sons. Hatch captured the splendor of country music along with other musical genres, promoting for jazz and blues entertainers like Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Duke Ellington.

Although letterpress printmakers like Hatch found it difficult to compete with the modern innovations of offset printmaking, the print shop found support in various arts like wrestling and rock and roll. Today, Hatch Printing is an integral component of the Country Music Foundation which was a donation made in 1992 by Gaylord Entertainment and runs 14 historic printing presses. The long and strenuous process to creating the perfect Hatch poster is described below: “Starting with a customer’s copy (or text), we design a look that not only captures the sound, feel and/or look of a band, magazine or product, but do so within the dimensions of the selected poster size and through the lens of Hatch history. Next, we turn to the three, five or ten different drawers and shelves containing the letters and hand-carved images needed to complete the design. Then, we carry the entire design form over to an available press, lock in, choose a color and start cranking. Did we say color? If more than one is required, we have to decide which portion of the layout to print in which color. One hundred posters in three colors? That’s three times through the press per poster or 300 runs altogether.”

(Courtesy of: http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/site/experience-hatch-today.aspx

For more information on Hatch Printing, check out this video which gives you an in depth look into the world of letter printing:

http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/site/multimedia-video.aspx?cid=3966