Yee-Haw Industries, in downtown Knoxville, is Mecca for any typophile. If you’re into letterpress and wood block printing, this place is a must see. They house a fully functional letterpress art print shop and creative studio in the back, and run a retail shop in the front.

While perusing the poster collections in their boutique, Cory and I struck up a conversation with a friendly employee. Once we explained that we’re designers from out of town, he generously invited us to go behind the counter and tour the letterpress studio. Above are the “decent” photos I was able to capture on my phone’s camera.

I was enamored with the amazing variety of letterpress findings. The tiny collections of stars, lines, zig-zags, and other type-frills made my brain tingle. What was especially mind tickling was all the organization. A place for everything and everything in its place. When you’re dealing with drawers and drawers of type, storage and a filing system are essential. I’m surprised they don’t use the Dewey Decimal System.

Here’s a fun fact: do you know where the terms “uppercase” and “lowercase” come from? When printers set font by hand a letter at a time, they placed the case holding the most frequent forms of the letters on a lower shelf for convenience. They called this box the “lower case.” Capital letters were placed higher in a different box called the “upper case.” Knowledge is power, folks.