Early communication technology

MSTD 300 Media History
MSTD 328 Print Production

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Printing

The ancient craft lives in modern terms like:
"By the same token... Pie-eyed... On the stick... Mind your ps and qs... Out of sorts ...Off the cuff... Hellbox ...Printers Devil ... Chapel ... Solace ... "

Understanding how 16th century society adapted to the printing press can give us valuable insights into how digital technology may affect us today. See Renaissance Computer video.

 

Woodcuts and engraving were printed routinely in Europe from the 13th century, although the earliest printed woodcuts are from China around 868.



Link: James Kaney, The Art of Making a Woodcut
Link: Hesketh Hubbard's Colour Block Prints

  Laurentus Coster and Johann Gutenberg are credited with the invention of moveable type in the 1440s.
 

The common press - Mid 15th Century to Early 19th Century

Can you find the frisket, tympan, gallows, stone, carriageway, platen, rounce, footstep,

 

For some reason the typesetting stick is lying on the floor.

 

Source: Handpress.org

Also see: Books and Universities

  The 18th Century letterpress was nearly the same as its predecessors two hundred years beforehand. Gutenberg would have been at home in Ben Franklin's print shop.
  Here a pressman in Williamsburg beats ink into the letters locked into the form. Paper that will receive the type is seen folded up in the first image. After the paper holder (the frisket and tympan) are foled down over the form, it is rolled down the carriageway. The lever is pulled to apply pressure.
  Pulling the platen down onto the tympan.
  Printed pages are dried from lines hanging across a ceiling and then collected using a long handled wooden spatula.
 

Twenty years after Ben Franklin's death, presses were driven by steam. By the 1850s, printing establishments were no longer "shops" but insteand had become industrial scale productions.

Stereotyping of plates solved the problem of holdling down the type in a revolving press.

Although steam driven, this variety of printing was still called "letterpress."


  Offset printing was introduced in the era after World War II and replaced web lettepress printing in the US by the 1990s. Here we see a four unit web offset press (red ink not being used).
  Offset printing works like lithography, on the principle that grease and water don't mix.
  Offset printing plate is placed into the press. Because the plates were much lighter than stereotype plates, offset presses could be calibrated for very fine color control.
  Solar press.
     
     

See

Early Newspaper Printing Presses (Scientific American 1896)

The Printing Press - Excellent Wikipedia article