Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker composes and locks movable type into the "bed" or "chase" of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it to transfer the ink from the type, which creates an impression on the paper. 

Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century to the 19th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century. Letterpress printing remained the primary means of printing and distributing information until the 20th century, when offset printing was developed, which largely supplanted its role in printing books and newspapers. Letterpress printing is still in use as a "fine printing" technique for creating cards, broadsides, posters, and other (mostly) unbound printed works. 

More recently, letterpress printing has seen a revival in a craft or artisanal form; in practice it may be allied to other hand-craft processes, e.g., bookbinding, paper making, tanning, paper marbling, etc. 

Letterpress is considered a craft as it involves using a skill and is done by hand. Fine letterpress work is crisper than offset litho because of its impression into the paper, (also known as "debossing," the opposite of embossing), which gives greater visual definition to the type and artwork, although it is not what letterpress traditionally was meant for.        —Wikipedia