Some of the images Johannes showed us during the Experimental Typography workshop I attended recently at SFCB had curved lines of type. During the studio time he demonstrated a way to achieve this effect.
1. Set type as usual in straight lines with rigid line spacing.
2. Remove the rigid line spacing, replacing with stiff but flexible material.
3. Manipulate to your desired shape and shim as necessary. The wooden blocks used here to contain the type are known as furniture. They fill up the non-printing area so the type and other printing elements stay in the desired location even when pressure is applied to make the image. Here the whole package is bound up with twine. It sounded like in his personal shop Johannes uses magnets to fix his printing elements in place.
2m2t 