Why?
It is important to understand where print design came from to understand where it is today. In addition, most web design has sought to mimic print design, so this information will we useful as we transition into web and digital design.
Required
What you will be doing is selecting 90 minutes worth of material from the readings categorized below.
- Typography
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Helvetica
“An independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. HELVETICA looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. An exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, this film offers a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.”
History of Typography (series), I Love Typography
The articles below each discuss different type families and their origins.
- “History of Typography: Part 1: Humanist" (2007)
- Words: 579 / Time: ~4 minutes
- Article: “History of Typography: Part 2: Old Style” (2007)
- Words: 771 / Time: ~5 minutes
- “History of Typography: Part 3: Transitional” (2008)
- Words: 1,312 / Time: ~9 minutes
- “History of Typography: Part 4: Modern (Didone)” (2008)
- Words: 680 / Time: ~4 minutes
- “History of Typography: Part 5: Slab Serif / Egyptian” (2008)
- Words: 874 / Time: ~6 minutes
From Hot Metal to Cold Type
"This film was created by the International Typographic Union to encourage their members to become more comfortable with the new “Cold Type” technology revolutionizing the typesetting industry. Starting with an explanation of the hot-metal process, they feature the Intertype Fotosetter and then go through the entire photo-composition process. The film shows camera work, stripping, chemical development, and paste-up. It ends with an aerial view of the ITU building in Colorado Springs, CO.”
Linotype the Film: In Search for the Eighth Wonder of the World
“This is the surprisingly emotional tale of one bewildering machine that revolutionized printing and society, and of the people who fight to keep it alive today.”
- “History of Typography: Part 1: Humanist" (2007)
- Letterpress & Typesetting
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Pressing On: The Letterpress Film
“Wood and metal letters pressed into paper laid the foundation for the modern world. Once essential to communication, letterpress printing unexpectedly thrives in our digital age. PRESSING ON is required viewing for design centered audiences, advertising and type nerds, history buffs and documentary lovers.”
An Introduction to Letterpress Printing with Mr. Smith, William Morris Gallery
“Typography artist Kelvyn Laurence Smith gives the William Morris Gallery an exclusive behind the scenes tour and introduction to letterpress printing at his workshop in Kennington, London. This film was first screened at the William Morris Gallery on Thursday 15 May 2014 as part of the Museums at Night fesitval.”
Learning to Set Type
This is an old training film on how to set type for print. It’s a little slow, but fascinating to see how it all works, and to get close up views and detailed instructions of how to set type.
Johannes Gutenberg: The Production of Metallic Type
- Johannes Gutenberg: The Production of Metallic Type
- Time: 3:37
- “Texts were broken up into the 23 letters of the Latin alphabet, and then individual letters were produced. This video vividly demonstrates how these individual letters were produced, composed, and used.” This is one of an eight-part series. The rest of the series is listed below. Not all are in English or with English subtitles, but you can turn on closed captioning for the video, click on settings and set the captions to auto-translate into English.
- 2. Johannes Gutenberg: The Art of Manual Typesetting
- Time: 2:14
- 3. Johannes Gutenberg: The Gutenberg Press
- Time: 2:03
- 4. Johannes Gutenberg: The Gutenberg Bible (2019)
- Time: 8:28
- 5. Johannes Gutenberg: The Göttingen Model Book and the Illumination of the Gutenberg Bible
- Time: 4:12
- 6. Johannes Gutenberg: The Development of Art Printing in the 15th Century
- Time: 7:11
- 7. Johannes Gutenberg: The Mechanization of the Casting of Metallic Type During the 19th Century
- Time: 2:14
- 8. Johannes Gutenberg: Important Early Printing Locations
- Time: 1:19
- This one is a little silly. It’s just a scrolling list of chronologically ordered locations and a map.
Hanzi: Exploring Language and Culture through Chinese Typography
“How does language shape identity? What role does handwriting play in the digital age? HANZI encourages audiences around the world to revisit and rethink their own culture, language and identity. HANZI explores international design, visual culture, and identity through the lens of modern Chinese typography.”
- Johannes Gutenberg: The Production of Metallic Type
- Typewriters
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History of Typewriters, The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation
“Developed by Christopher Glidden in the 1860s and manufactured by the Remington arms company beginning in 1873, the Sholes & Glidden was the first commercially successful typewriter. Its adoption by large corporations kickstarted the typewriter industry and contributed to the speedup of American work life. The innovations of the Sholes & Glidden, particularly its keyboard layout, were widely adopted. This typewriter is why your computer keyboard reads QWERTYUIOP. The typewriter was not immediately successful. Manufacturers had to figure out how to combine precise machinery with a durable structure and components.”
Early Typewriters, The Royal Ontario Museum
“Private collector, Martin Howard speaks about the development of the typewriter, highlighting examples from his own collection on display in the exhibition Early Typewriters (July 7, 2007 to June 29, 2008).”
- Linotype
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Farewell ETAOIN SHRDLU
“A film [. . .] documenting the last day of hot metal typesetting at The New York Times. This film shows the entire newspaper production process from hot-metal typesetting to creating stereo moulds to high-speed press operation. At the end of the film, the new typesetting and photographic production process is shown in contrast to the old ways.”
From Hot Metal to Cold Type
"This film was created by the International Typographic Union to encourage their members to become more comfortable with the new “Cold Type” technology revolutionizing the typesetting industry. Starting with an explanation of the hot-metal process, they feature the Intertype Fotosetter and then go through the entire photo-composition process. The film shows camera work, stripping, chemical development, and paste-up. It ends with an aerial view of the ITU building in Colorado Springs, CO.”
Linotype the Film: In Search for the Eighth Wonder of the World
“This is the surprisingly emotional tale of one bewildering machine that revolutionized printing and society, and of the people who fight to keep it alive today.”
- Offset Lithography
-
The Printing Process: Sheet Offset Pres
This video explains how 4-color printing (CMYK) works in the commercial offset lithogrpahy process.
- Xerography & Photocopying
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The Invention of Xerography, Adjusted Margin: Xerography, Art, and Activism in the Later Twentieth Century
“In the early years of xerography, the process was pitched to potential consumers not only as a process that would reduce or eliminate the mess and time associated with traditional printing methods and facilitate printing on a wide range of surfaces, but also as a process that promised a compact and potentially portable means of reproducing and circulating documents. Given their reputation as clunky rather than compact, more likely to be associated with the production of waste than the compression of data, this may come as a surprise. The machine’s early history, however, suggests that it was invested in the compression, portability, speed, and real-time transmission of data that would revolutionize communications in the late twentieth century.”
History of Xerox Copiers, The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation
“The Xerox 914 was the first commercially successful automatic office copier. Using Chester Carlson’s xerography process, documents were produced electrostatically, using powdered toner. This copier weighed 650 pounds and made one copy every 26 seconds on paper up to 9 x 14 inches. The 914 also came with a "scorch eliminator"—a small fire extinguisher for taming fires caused by overheating.”
Secret Life Of Machines: The Photo Copier, BBC
“James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, patented the first copying machine, because of the disastrous inaccuracies that had occurred due to copying drawings by hand. Drawings to be copied were written in a special ink which bled into the copy when squashed through a mangle.”
- Risography
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Printing Technology of Risograph, Riso Channel
This is a dry but informative walk through of how a RISO machine works.
The Risograph Printing Process with No Style Press, Society6
“This is a behind the scenes look at the risograph printing process with Jonathan Crisman of No Style Press. We printed our Lost Time zine using soy based inks and we couldn’t be more stoked about the results.”
BYU Riso Lab
This is the website for BYU's Riso Lab where you can make appointments to use the lab and access their resources. They feature a number of videos that walk you through the basics of preparing files for printing in a Riso machine.
- Inkjet Printing
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How Printer Ink Works, How Stuff Works
“Printer ink sounds pretty mundane but as it turns out there’s a lot of science and technology behind it. From nozzles projecting ink at incredible speeds to reasons why refilling cartridges isn’t a great idea, we explain how printer ink works.”
- Laser Printing
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How a Color Laser Printer Works – Inside an HP® 2600 Toner Cartridge
“This animated video takes a look into the electrophotographic process, used by HP® CP2600 laser printers to create vivid color prints.”
- Photoshop & Digital Design
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How Photoshop Changed the Way We Work, Creative Bloq
“If there was just one computer graphics program that could make us all weep with utter love, that would be Photoshop. Not that there aren’t many other jaw dropping programs around today, there are. And it’s not that Photoshop was the first program in the world to do (mostly) what it did, as it wasn’t. So on Photoshop’s 25th anniversary, we have to ask what was it that put it so far ahead of similar programs? This is a hard question to answer in a single article. But it all began with two brothers. While not nearly as famous as the Wright Brothers, for those of us in the graphic arts business, the Knoll brothers have probably had a much more meaningful impact on our daily lives. Yet too few people recognize their name.”
Startup Memories—The Beginning of Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop
“In this documentary, the founders of Adobe Photoshop - John Knoll, Thomas Knoll, Russell Brown, and Steve Guttman - tell the story of how an amazing coincidence of circumstances, that came together at just the right time 20 years ago, spawned a cultural paradigm shift unparalleled in our lifetime.”
Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production (trailer)
Film Time: 84 minutes (must rent to watch)
“Imagine designing and printing a brochure—without a computer. How would you set the type—making sure it fit your layout? How would you crop the images? How would you place those images alongside your text? And what would you hand over to the offset printer when you were done? Up until just 30 years ago when the desktop computer debuted, this whole process would have been primarily done by hand, and with the aide of fascinating machines that used a variety of ways to get type and image on to the printed page.”
Before there was Photoshop | graphic design tools | Photoshop 25th anniversary
“Follow along as Sean Adams mocks up a layout with a variety of traditional design tools. Join lynda.com as we celebrate 25 years of Photoshop with inspiring stories from luminaries who have helped shape the most prolific design tool of our time.”Photoshop Tutorials, Adobe
“Learn the basics, or refine your skills with tutorials designed to inspire.” You can sort by experience level depending on your comfort level.
LinkedIn Learning
This was formerly known as Lynda.com. This has a plethora of tutorials on Photoshop and Illustrator. You can sign in through the Provo Library (assuming you have a library card) to get full access.
66 Brilliant Photoshop Tutorials to Try, Creative Bloq
“Every user can benefit from Photoshop tutorials, however experienced they are. Being an app rich in tools and possibilities, and one which has been around for so long, it can be easy for any digital artist to overlook great opportunities to learn and do more with the software. That's where our roundup of brilliant tutorials comes in. For those just starting out, the best beginner-level Photoshop tutorials will help you to grasp the basics and set you on the right path. Once you've mastered the basics, intermediate Photoshop tutorials can help to boost your skills and introduce new techniques. And even if you think you've mastered it all, there's probably still more you can learn, which is where advanced tutorials come in.”
Response Questions
Remember to cite specific instances from the text to support your views.
- Are there particular outdated printing process (outlined in the readings above) to which you find yourself drawn? Why do you think that is? Is is useful to resurrect old technologies, or to just move ahead?
- Photoshop and its ilk have overwritten so many jobs that used to exist 20–30 years ago. That also means that designers, illustrators, and photographers today now do, or know how to do jobs that used to belong to specialists—they wear many hats. Do you see that as a good or bad thing? Why?
- Most people can’t see beyond current technologies. Most Linotype operators couldn’t see past their giant machines (both literally and figuratively). What do you think is beyond Photoshop—i.e., what will be the Photoshop killer? Are you ready for it?
- Who do you think makes a larger impact on the world, the programmers, engineers, and industrial designers who create design programs, computers, digital cameras, etc., or the artists who use the tools?
- If hardware and software keeps changing faster, then what does that mean for the programmers, engineers, and industrial designers vs. the artists?
- Analog systems usually have physical archives that don’t require elaborate machines to translate the information. The move to digital requires software and hardware to read your data. This means that if you want access to your documents and information, you need to perpetually update them and save them within new formats and new programs. What will happen when a better file format than JPG is widely accepted? What will happen to your thousands of photos? What are the pros and cons of this? Is it worth it?