I Wonder How Gutenberg Felt?

I was reading the PrintSouth Magazine today and this was the headline “I wonder how Gutenberg felt?” by Jim Lobaito. This is what the first three paragraphs say.

When Gutenberg ran his Bible off the press, I wonder if he was thinking about all the people he was about to put out of work? The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type print press, thus ushering in the age of mass produced printed book. Suddenly ideas could be shared with the masses and humanity dramatically changed.

The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge and moveable type made it available to common man. Surely this was an exciting time to be in business or was it?

The people who transcribed books by hand for a living felt threatened by moveable type.

The story goes to tell the reader how web sites aren’t threatening to today’s printers. But this got me to thinking about how threatening we feel when something new comes along. We just installed a new digital press. It’s night and day different from Gutenberg’s printing press. It could be seen as a threat to the other printers in our town, or the pressman that runs our offset press. It’s faster, has better quality, and unbelievably easy to run. As good as it is, it will not replace the old ink on paper printing press any time soon.

The process of printing has changed over the years, and each change has put someone or a trade out in the street looking for a new jobs. I know there’s been times I’ve felt threaten by someone or a new printing company coming to town. The one thing I do know, is when I’ve been threatened, it has always has got my butt too moving. We can get in a rut and not want any changes in our day to day world. This is what the writer was saying about the people who transcribed books. Change comes with a price sometimes, and there are times when it doesn’t, but there’s one thing you can count on, there will be changes like them or not.

The progression of offset printing, where do I start.

I guess there isn’t any form of printing in modern history as much fun, and brings out the art of printing as Letterpress. Letterpress changed the way we copy the written word more than any other process. It has given us the way to quickly change content and mass produce the written word.

But this was a long time in the making. First China invented wooden blocks that were carved with letters or whole words around 2000 years ago. Then in the mid 1400s a guy with the name of Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany which was in the heart of German wine growing region. He built a printing press on the same idea as the wine presses of his day. Using movable type in his printing press he opened a whole new process of printing.

As the printing process spread so did the number of people who could read and the number who could afford to reproduce their ideas, there religious thoughts, and the news of the day’s events.

 But that’s history. I want to talk about the Art of Printing with the letterpress. It was just as creative as photography or oil painting, in Gutenbergs time an apprentice would work for 6 to 10 years before he could be called a printer, and even more before being called a Master Printer.  The process required understanding  of paper,  ink, and the nimbleness of placing very and I mean very little letters in reverse order so when the letters were inked and were pressed in to the paper it would read correct. Even the measurements were different in printing. Pica and points were used. 6pt to a 12pt pica. When lead type was first invented they made a cast 1 inch in height. When it cooled it shrank to .918 which is what we call type high, one more new measurement for the printer to use. The measurements for amount of space side to side where called M’s and N’s for a cap letter M was the largest width of a letter and an N was ½  of that.

The arrival of the letter press changed the way we communicate maybe more than any other form of communication in history. With people like Gutenberg and Ben Franklin pushing the process in to everyday lives.