Bernard Brussel-Smith's print of a man hunched over a sewing machine stitching shoes is a wood engraving, a variation of a woodcut.

For a wood engraving, the artist carves his design on the end of a block of wood. The wood engraving method allows for greater degree of detail because the artist can carve in any direction without taking into account the grain of the wood. Further, the artist uses tools that produce finer lines than are possible with woodcut. A closer look reveals such lines in the man's hands and in the textures of the sewing table and wood paneling on the walls.