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A self-taught newspaper Linotype operator who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico City, Luis Ocon’s purchase of Aardvark Typographers from his former boss Ken Matson coincided with the early adoption of computerized typesetting.

My newspaper career began at age 16 as a printer’s devil — cleaning presses, melting Linotype lead — for the weekly Ojai Valley News.

The skills required to turn hot lead into letters on a Linotype machine or to position a strip of cold type on a grid board were easily transferrable.

There, linotype machines would turn those paragraphs into rows of metal type.

The Linotype machine resembled a medieval torture device with its hulking metal form and the wisps of steam curling from the cauldron of molten lead in its core.