In the heart of the Lot in the South-West of France, Imprimerie Trace gathers a team of passionate people who perpetuate traditional printing techniques. Founded in 2004 by the typographer Gérard Lefèvre, the associative printing shop expanded when his son Camille and a group of friends joined him in 2010. In addition to typography, they developed silkscreen printing and risography.
Today, the structure has 6 people including graphic designers and comic book authors. The associative life allows members to work both for the printing company's clients and on their own creations," explains Camille Escoubet.
The clientele is varied: artists, publishing houses, individuals, companies. Risography makes it possible to produce small prints, flyers, etc., which are too expensive to be produced by typography or screen printing.
In particular, three years ago Trace designed all the stationery for the Paris School of Fine Arts and last year a poster of Riad Sattouf for the BPI of the Centre Pompidou.
The workshop is composed of 2 Heidelberg Ofmi Garamond plates from the 60's, a debergny-comb cylinder press from the 40's which allows to print in 60 x 70, 2 pedal presses, several cutters including a FL from the 1910's, various processing equipment, a screen printing table and a riso MZ two-colour A3 machine.
An associated publishing house
The print shop is associated with the Super Loto Editions publishing house (comic strips, illustrations, beautiful books), created in 2011 by Camille Escoubet. One of the publisher's books - War by Marion Jdanoff - was notably selected by the Angoulême festival in 2020.
"Most of the time, Super Lotto Editions books have bits of printing done at Trace Printing, like covers, inside pages, etc." says Camille Escoubet.
From lockdown to "fly night"
Like many structures, the printing plant closed during containment. Demand came back this summer thanks to tourism, and the pace is now back to more or less normal," says Camille.
The association, which also focuses its activity on activities and workshops, was able to resume initiations in silkscreen and typography in its workshop and in schools this summer, as part of the "learning holidays" scheme set up by the government.
The printer has also made headlines in the press in recent weeks with the very successful hijacking of the posters usually found in the summer in the countryside.
"This summer, with a few friends, we decided to occupy the neon poster space, for the first time left vacant by the cancellation of all the summer events." they explain.
