The Local Type is the brainchild of Bert’s own Robbie Steer and fellow designer Billy Fenton. Together, they scour towns, cities and villages to collect historic, often overlooked typography and curate what they uncover into an eclectic alphabet of each place.

Their photographs are digitised to create an artwork that is screen printed by hand in the locality – no two are ever the same. Each A-Z also presents a social history of the local area through type – with a list of the letters’ locations to be found on the reverse of each print.

Recent type hunts in places like Colchester, Fleet Street and Nashville, have led to some unexpected discoveries and meeting with lots of local types.

Talking type
When Robbie and Billy aren’t out looking for letters, they deliver workshops with students from primary schools to universities; inviting them to search their local area and print with their wood type archive. They also regularly speak about the project to like-minded people; and have done so at the Independent Paper Show, Type & Faces and the St Bride Foundation.

You can follow their growing collection of found type, the stories behind them and purchase prints on Instagram @The_LocalType