The San Francisco Center for the Book's annual Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival is an all-day public printmaking and book arts extravaganza that includes free hands-on printmaking and book arts activities, demonstrations, vendors, open house, and more.

With roots going back hundreds of years, relief printing -- a process where a protruding surface is inked and brought into contact with paper - is one of the oldest methods of printing illustrations in books.

Each year at the Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival we celebrate this facet of book arts history in the biggest, most spectacular way we can think of: by printing linocuts using a 7-ton 1924 Buffalo Springfield steamroller  -- provided by our friends Roots of Motive Power(link is external) -- and the road surface of Rhode Island Street as an enormous makeshift printing press! A team of featured artists, printers and steamroller operators create large-scale Classic print and smaller-scale Personal prints (details below) during the Festival.

Classic Prints and Personal Prints are literally "print-on-demand"; they are available only during the daylong event and are limited edition. Each print purchased during SFCB's Roadworks event helps raise funds that directly benefit San Francisco Center for the Book, our workshops, exhibitions, and our free public events (like Roadworks!)