Establishment: 2022-2024
Skeuomorph Press was founded in Spring 2022, when Ryan Cordell (faculty, iSchool and English), Kadin Henningsen (PhD student, English), and Tad Schroeder (staff, iSchool) delivered the equipment from a personal print shop to the CU Community FabLab. Shortly thereafter, the UIUC Ironworkers helped move an antique iron hand press (nicknamed “Ole’ Minty” for its hospital-green paint) from a hallway in the iSchool, where it had been on display as a museum piece for two decades, to the press space to be refurbished for use. Based on research by MSLIS student Mary Tyler, that press had been in use on campus since the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and had been owned and used at various times by the design department, the “Wayzgoose Society,” the English department, and the library school. In the Fall of 2023, the Noble Ink Lab donated another iron hand press to Skeuomorph. Based on its serial number we believe this press was produced around 1840, and an impression still left on its original tympan—which we have saved in the press—shows that it was used to print the local newspaper in the 1930s.
Ryan Cordell has since served as the press’ founding Director and has helped to expand its outreach into departments and programs around campus, while building its collection of functional, historical media technologies for research and teaching. Founding Assistant Director Kadin Henningsen has contributed his expertise to, among other things, restoring Skeuomorph’s hand presses and mimeograph machine; while founding Assistant Director Isabella Viega (PhD student, iSchool) helped build and restore our typewriter and word processor collection, as well as building our capacity for workshops and community engagement.
During this building phase, the local letterpress community and UIUC alumni contributed enormously to Skeuomorph’s rapid growth by donating equipment, time, and funding to the effort. Key undergraduate contributors to the press’ first years were Keely Kuester (English), who worked as an RA and open hours supervisor, and Aaron Mukhopadhyay (English), who founded and became the first president of the Skeuomorphics student club. In Fall 2024 Marguerite Carrithers (iSchool) was appointed as Skeuomorph’s first MSLIS graduate assistant. Throughout these years, the iSchool’s facilities director Tad Schroeder was the press’ stalwart champion, moving mountains to ensure we had the space, equipment, and resources needed to support UIUC students and the wider CU Community.