penny papers

HisGD 01/31

Quiz next week, test the following week

Know 5 historic fonts

Know baseline, x line, cap line

Type is measured from highest to lowest

Leading from baseline to baseline

William Caslon Jr.- first sans-serif font, two line Egyptian

1900- sans serif appears in running text

What is harpers’ printing firm?

Did the Civil War evolve typography in any way?

First iron press, 1800- was produced not craft

- sped up the production of type, used 1/10^th of physical effort of wood presses.

-200 impressions/hour

Fredrerich Koening- paten for double cylinder steam powered press 1814

-print on both side, no human force. 1100 impressions/hour

What created the need for a faster, powered press? Rise in newspapers?

-popular media prices dropped dramatically after press.

1827- Times commissioned steam press in secret, amidst opposition to steam presses. Put compositors out of work.

Penny papers- sold to wider audience, cost a penny. Sold ad space within paper.

Visual conservative, no illustrations.

How does a steam press work compared to a human operated one?

John Huppert- first Ad man! 1841 would gather ads for newspapers.

-Broker of space, gives ads to multiple spaces.

 At what point did ad men began designing and making ads?

How did ad men and print shops meet to make ads or were they independent? Did companies higher print shops directly for ads, or did ad men?

Ottmar Mergenthaller- perfected linotype in 1886         <Jonnie Spiarow>

-25,000 impressions an hour for presses at the current moment

-papers limited to 8 pages

- first paten in 1825, by 1886, 300 exist

1886- demonstrates linotype machine to New York Tribunes, replaces 8 compositors immediately.

- Was not a qwerty keyboard, when did qwerty develop, why is it important.

-types out negative, spits in lead to make a line of type. Re melt for new lines

Modern resurgence in letterpress.

1826- Joseph Niepse- first nature photograph

Pairs Boulevard- 1836 degarotype

Henry Fox Talbot- photograms

- placing objects on photosensitive paper, exposing it, and develop it

-printed first photo from negative- 1835

Are photograms a popular medium today, could photograms be used in graphic design today, type photograms?

Kodak releases easy to use camera for everyone.

Illustrators would illustrate photographs so they could be printed.

1880- first half tone plate- could print continuous tones.

-ink is binary

-allowed for printed photographs, “K “ is born!

Civil war- first war to be photographed.

- aftermath of scene.

Edward Muybridge- first stop motion sequence

-beginning of motion pictures

was there a way to play back yet?

Victorian- 1800s

Victorian graphics known for aesthetic confusion.

Loved complexity

Bits and pieces of other aesthetics put together.

Lithography (stone printing) and chromolithography

Late 1700s

Litho- gradation and drawing.

Separate stone for each color

Chromolithography- color lithography

Lithography allowed for different treatments and alignments of type

EPHEMERA

-Scrap cards- collectable give-a-ways.

- first time anyone can have colored art

Loved pattern, color, and texture!

Trompe loi- illusion of  depth

Louis Prang and company-1880- early 1900s

-spirit of nationalism

Pubs setting, leaving a blank space fro information to be added later

Thoughts:

Many of the classes before focused on the art and the design of printing uo until this point. This class was mostly about the technology and how those advances changed the design. I’m surprised that these majors advances all happened within a very short period of time. It only took 14 years to go from 200 impressions an hours by hand to 1100 impressions an hour by steam power. But how did the need for steam-power printing come from? Was it for convince and to speed up printing? I thought it might have occurred from the rise in popularity of newspapers.

However, the creation of the steam press, particularly the double cylinders steam press, led to the printing of penny papers. These cheap, mass produced newspapers were sold on the street and started an increase in readership and distribution. These papers were relatively simple, words with no pictures. What is more significant is that penny papers opened up an avenue for the emerging advertising business.  

John Huppert becomes the world’s first ad man in 1841 by taking advertisements and buying spaces for them in multiple outlets. Advertising has started as a media buying business, but when does the transition begin to include creative direction within the business. Did Ad men begin working with the poster shops to create ads that would fill the purchased media space? 

The next innovation would not come till 1886 but it was big one. The linotype machine allowed for lines of text to be made by using a keyboard to type out a line of negatives. Molten lead was then shot into the negatives to make a single line of text. The Linotype was so revolutionary that when demonstrated to the New York Tribune, it replaced 8 out of every 9 compositor jobs. As difficult as that may have been to the compositor community, it was necessary to compete with the 25,000 impressions per hour needed to produce enough supply.  Yet it did not have the modern qwerty keyboard, so how was the old system of type in comparison to our modern day arrangement?

While all these advances in printing were being made, at the same time photography was discovered and developing (haha) rapidly and would collide with printing later in 1880.  With the Kodak camera and the civil war photos, a way to print photos was necessary. The result was the half tone plate that brought to the world the ability to create half tone plates; essentially it was the birth of “K.”

But until color printing came about, chromolithography was the technique used for color printing, and no one took more advantage of that than the Victorian aesthetic. Graphic and confusing,  the Victorian age produced tons and tons of collectible ephemera. Anyone could have art now, how incredible! Although not as aesthetically confusing now, I find that ephemera has some of the most simple yet interesting design. It has a that collectible  quality that creates warm feelings.

Questions:

A lot of questions came up in this lesson, but these were the most important for me. Referring back to the ad men, when did ad men begin working with poster shops to produce ads? Plus what was the effect upon the graphic design and advertising community when photographic printing was possible? Was it immediate or slow at first? While these printing innovations were a major set forward, in this age printing is taking a back step to digital and web-based content. While digital has the fast growth, what growth is printing experiencing now? How is the rise of digital forcing print to adapt to maintain its importance in mass media?