Arion Press

Awesome little place. I’m fond of fonts and typography but nothing quite beats the immense history of it. At Arion Press, it’s like a capsule of the history and culture of typefaces. The (collector) books here are still printed and binded the same way as it did many, many years ago. It houses the largest collection of typefaces in the United States! And you get to walk right in and see it for yourself — how awesome is that?
There are weekly tours every Thursday at 3:30pm for $ 10 (payable to the nonprofit tour sponsor). They seem to do one Saturday open house event for each season and that’s what brought us here on a fall Saturday.
We looked around for 10 minutes before the tour started at 3pm and though it was very nice browsing about, the tour is something you should not miss. It added so much depth and history to the art and mechanics of type. You get to head downstairs and see all the machinery, walls and walls of different typefaces, work stations with pages of type that are arranged by individual letters one-​by-​one… then you walk through this hallway filled with different paper materials (love the smell of fresh paper) to get to another room where there are machinery to manually build new typefaces. We each got to take home one too! Then comes the book binding, also by hand, and you see all the different fabrics and prints used for a book’s cover. Even when the tour was over, there was a gallery and some refreshments to enjoy upstairs.
I love this place. There’s so much history and culture in it. I hope the Presidio Trust remembers that and continue to aid Arion Press.

Can’t say anything new that other reviewers haven’t already pointed out. Amazing place, a treasure in the Presidio.

7×7 Mag featured this place and it seemed really interesting. I was glad I went. The tour was informative and it was nice to learn a bit of history. On top of it, I love antiques so seeing all the old presses, drawers and machines made the experience quite magical for me. This place really is a hidden gem and the tour was only a mere $ 7. It’s what I call a «must see» kind of place.

This place is so frickin cool! Arion Press was hands down my favorite sightseeing stop in my whole two weeks in San Francisco! I highly recommend you see it.
They give visitors a really interesting reminder that printing used to be a major industry in northern California. Now they are producing beautiful collectors editions in collaboration with contemporary artists like Jim Dine and Kiki Smith.
This is a must-​see for graphic design nerds, book lovers, and anyone who ever wanted to yell «Stop the Presses!» They host weekly tours of the actual machinery downstairs and feature a big, detailed exhibit on their works like Don Quixote, Our Man in Havana, The Bible, Mrs. Bridge, and Paradise Lost.

I’m taking a break from my Unilocal «food diary» mode here: a tour of Arion Press is a must-​do for book lovers and real graphic designers (and, sorry, I don’t mean you people who just happen to have a computer and design software). The tour will give you a true appreciation for old-​fashioned bookmaking, from making the type from molten lead, to printing, to binding and finishing. A true, rich experience I’ll never forget. Instantly and easily one of the best tours I’ve experienced in the city.

if you’re into books, design, craftiness, or big old clunky machines with millions of moving parts, this place is a must-​see. These people spend time getting grimy in a basement, collecting gigantic boxes full of metal typefaces that are all but extinct anywhere else in the world. Their dedication and the work they produce is awe-​inspiring, and it’s all happening next to an abandoned hospital in the Presidio!
Arion Press joins with contemporary artists to produce limited-​edition books. Every single detail of the paper, illustrations, binding, typeset, and packaging of the books is exquisitely thought-​out and related to the material they’ve chosen to publish. For instance, one of the books they produced was a work of James Joyce, and the type they used was from Ireland, created during the time Joyce was writing.
No, you probably can’t actually afford to buy any of the beautiful books they make there. But they will give you a lead ‘sort’ as a souvenir of your tour! (Look that one up — you’ll vastly expand/​geek up your printing vocabulary once you visit.) Plus you’ll have the good feeling of having supported people who are truly honoring and honing their craft, old-​style.

This place is also called or is subdivided by M & H Type Foundry.
Its in the Presidio off of 14^th, but you have to take 15^th to get into the Presidio right there.
I am told that they are the last place in the US that is a full on foundry with letter press and both lino & monotype capabilities. They actually do all the punchcutting, forge the letters themselves and do all their own printing, and then recycle the lead and do all over again.
There is a bible they have printed that is literally like $ 18,000. There are some really exceptional printings to look at, including one that is round. The lockup they printed it from sits in the lobby as you walk in the door.
Downstairs is a completely different world. The press room with these awesome full size letter press machines. Stations and stations of places to set type.
Then there is the maze-​like underbelly of the foundry. Long hallways filled wall to wall and floor to ceiling with type cases that contain 6 tons of type. Take another left and you’re in the foundry itself with the molten vats of lead being cast into letters and other characters.
This is a really awesome place if type and/​or history are what you’re into.
They are open for tours every Thursday at 3pm and it costs $ 7.
Check it out!