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Wednesday, November 01, 2017

Technological Developments in Printing


by Teresa Carr

For the most part civilization depends upon the written word as a soul means of communication. In the past two hundred years the innovation of book printing has improved through the advent of technology. Without this most important invention our means of printed materials would probably still be primitive. Since 1454, when a German goldsmith, Johannes Gutenberg was the first to construct a press that compromised with moveable type, when laid over ink, could repeatedly print on paper. This began the use of a revolutionary system of rapid print. His achievement was the printing of about 300 bibles, in which 48 of them still survive today.

Before the invention of the printing press creating documents was very slow and tedious process. Most written materials were written by hand that took long hours to complete an entire work. The Illuminated Gospels created by the Irish monks were beautifully decorated books of the scriptures. The most famous the Book of Kells is an example of the hand-printed book. Gutenberg revolutionary invention changed the world forever made the printing press the greatest advance technology since the wheel. Gutenberg's method of printing with moveable type allowed for the first time a mass production of printed books, or incunabula. The success of the printing meant that books were made cheaper, and anyone could afford them. This enabled people to expand in knowledge and participate in discussions and literacy became a necessity of an existence. This opened up a cultural rebirth which inspired an appreciation on classical art and literature, and this in turn encouraged a passion for artistic expression. Probably without the turn of events in cheap printing that made books available the Renaissance may not have happened. The impact that Gutenberg's press made in Europe compared to that of the development of writing, the alphabet and even the Internet as an example of its effects on society. The press didn't dominate the position of the handwriting and graphic types of communication instead each one influenced each other.

After about fifty to sixty years of the development of the printing press, history began to advance at a faster pace. Scientists were about to communicate their works through the establishment of published journals that helped to bring on the scientific revolution. Since its people had more access to knowledge, they could learn, read, and discuss. Book production became more commercial and the knowledge of typesetting was handed down from master to apprentice. After the discovery and settlement of America the first printing press was set up in Boston, Massachusetts in 1638 by Stephen Daye. The newspaper was almost non-existent until 1719, early printers could produced only what was conveniently printed to be shipped to England. It was the years following 1730 that the growth of printing became more diverse. Up to 1740, Boston was the only city in the colonies that lead in book printing and trading. It was then at the start of the Industrial Revolution, in 1810 that German printer, Freidrich Koenig was the first to design a non-manpowered machine by using steam. The first success of this machine took place in April of 1811. This exceeded 1,000 impressions per hour. In 1833, the rotary  printing press was invented by Richard M. Hoe. This allowed millions of copies of a page in a day. Mass production of printed works increased after the changeover to rolling paper.
By the 1930's into the 1940's printing presses had increased in efficiency. A model of the Platen Printing Press could print out 2,500 to 3,000 impressions per hour. There after followed innovative improvements and inventions that made printing even better and much more faster. Inventions such as Lithography and offset printing, with the use of inked imaging from a plate to a rubber blanket to a printing surface. This evolved into dye sublimation by 1957. As we know it today this gave way to many innovative devices that made our world just a touch of a button. When the computer came along in the 1960's it changed the way the printed page looked. The invention of the personal computer by Steve Jobs in 1976 made printing available to everyone. The computer then contributed to the development of laser, dot matrix, thermal, and inkjet printing by 1976.

Since then the invention of WYSIWYG software for desktop publishing that began  in 1985, with the introduction of MacPublisher on a small Macintosh computer, which gave rise to another art form—typography, has changed the way we created documents for publication. The first of these introduced was Apple LaserWriter and Aldus PageMaker (now Adobe). These skills aren't limited to just paper and book publishing alone. When the  internet was invented electronic publishing was born. Now we have e-books and electronic articles available immediately without waiting weeks or months. All you do is just download them onto your computer hard drive.  Even though the printing press is a choice for high volume professional printing, the computing printer has improved on quality and performance. This has made it possible for the designer to be able to design in  a more proficient and professional manner. It also give us the ability to create better art and design and build upon more ideas of new media. In other words, by design we can cross-integrate these ideas in many forms such as multimedia for the Internet, photography, painting, science, literature, film studies, and cultural studies. The sky is the  limit to what we can achieve with what we have to improve upon.

REFERENCES CITED

Meggs, Philip B. & Purvis, Alston W., Meggs' History of Graphic Design, Fourth Edition, Prentice Hall
History of Printing, (1) http://communication.ucsd.edu/bjones/Books/four.html (2) http://communication.ucsd.edu/bjones/Books/printech.html
Printing in 1947, The Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/details/Printing1947
How Stuff Works, "What is Dye Sublimation?," http://www.howstuffworks.com/question583.htm
THE COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA, Incunabula Facts, information, pictures— http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/incunabula.aspx
History of Desktop Publishing (DTP), future of design, http://www.designtalkboard.com/design-articles/desktoppublishing.php

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