Bio…

Scott Vile has been printing since the age of 15 when he discovered the Graphic Arts Department at his high school in Glen Ridge, NJ. He started out with a Compugraphic typesetting system and a Heidelberg GTO, showing that it was a rather progressive school; the metal type had been removed a few years before. Vincent Timpanaro taught him the black art, as he did so many others in his fifty Glen Ridge years, retiring in 2018. 

Upon graduation from high school, Scott entered the Rochester Institute of Technology in the four-year program in Printing. One of the classes was the History of the Book, held in the Melbert B . Cary Memorial Library. It was there that he was exposed to the intricacies of book design, typography, and the “book beautiful.” 

Though Scott graduated with a career in screen printing in mind, he began acquiring letterpress equipment, as it was then plentiful and inexpensive. The first Vandercook was brought into his mother’s living room in 1984. Then the accumulation of hot metal type started. Soon after, he landed at the Anthoensen Press in Portland, ME, a highly respected scholarly press. Yet, due to an unsuccessful transition from hot type to cold, the Press closed and Scott started his own business printing in Portland, ME, establishing Ascensius Press in 1989.  

Acquiring the Shagbark Press in 1992, he was able to serve all clients from the Anthoensen and Shagbark presses. As he worked, Scott was absorbing the legacies of Fred Anthoensen, Bruce Rogers, W.A. Dwiggins, and Daniel Berkeley Updike. It was Updike who accomplished “common work uncommonly well,” which became one of the tenets of Ascensius Press. 

In 2017 Scott merged with Firefly Press of Boston, and moved all the equipment into a 4,000-square foot building in Bar Mills, Maine. Soon the Press also brought in the monotype casting equipment and presses from Sun Hill Press, owned by retiring Darrell Hyder, probably bringing the total tonnage of equipment to approximately 20!

Scott is a 28-year member of the Society of Printers, a 15-year member of the Club of Odd Volumes, a 30-year member of Portland’s Baxter Society (president for five years), and a lapsed member of the Grolier Club. He is currently Printer to the Club of Odd Volumes, a position held in its 132-year history by only five previous members.