History of Printing & Publication
The history of the printing press is deeply tied to the development of human civilization: the technology and its refinements and evolutions drastically lowered the cost of the the written word, allowing a flourishing of ideas otherwise limited by the output and availability of human scribes. While the Gutenberg press is the best-known example of early mass-printing, the origins of the technology stretch across the world.
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Earliest Known Press
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The earliest-known example of the printing press was discovered by archaeologists in Greece. The Phaistos Disc, however, is an object of mystery; the contents carved onto the disc with a diameter of 15 centimeters have remained indecipherable.
Woodblock Engraving
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Japanese woodblock art The earliest examples of woodblock engravings originated in China. Woodblock printing was simple: a flat block of wood was carved with a knife to produce mirror-image impressions of the words to be printed, painted over with ink, then carefully pressed upon a sheet of paper or cloth.
Woodblock printing has, to its name, the earliest known book on record: the Diamond Sutra, a 16-foot scroll of Buddhist literature printed around 868 AD.
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Movable Type
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Contrary to western opinion, Johannes Gutenberg was not the inventor of movable type. Though invented in China, its utility in the East was highly inefficient. Compare the common 26 letters of the alphabet, plus capitalizations, to the roughly 5,000 symbols of Chinese text, and the burden on part of the printer to keep track of all of them. Furthermore, the earliest forms of movable type were done in clay, the fragility of which limited its use and appeal, though the Korean implementation of bronze type helped offset that particular setback.
Gutenberg Press
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The Gutenberg press combined many printing technologies into a cohesive and rapid whole: metal movable type, first invented in the East, and a simple mechanical platform in which to utilize it to greatest effect. The simple piston action of the first Gutenberg press allowed far greater output than previously possible. Its true strength, however, comes with its timing: the Gutenberg press was invented roughly parallel to the development of cheap paper, vastly reducing the materials' cost inherent in the Western printing industry's reliance on vellum (cowhide).
Modern Printing
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Ink cartridges for an inkjet printer Printing technology has developed quickly since Gutenberg. Modern printing is now characterized by two technologies: rotary lithographic presses, for mass production, and inkjet printers at the consumer level.
The modern lithographic printing press utilizes sheets of etched metal wrapped around a rotary device, through which large sheets of uncut paper are fed through and printed onto. Such technology is ideal for mass publications, such as with newspapers and magazines, with circulations in the hundreds to hundreds of thousands.
Inkjet printers, such as the kind sitting on the desks of many American homes, utilize a more compact approach, using small jet nozzles to spray dots of ink in rows across the surface of a small sheet of paper. This process is slower than a lithographic print and can often be less detailed, but allows printing to be done at the individual consumer level.
Future of Printing
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The development of 3D printing and fabrication technology opens untold possibilities to the world of printing. With the right materials and a computer-aided-design (CAD) file, a 3D printer can turn a digital representation of an object into the actual thing, using nozzles and processes similar to inkjet technology. Though the field is still in its infancy, engineers have coaxed 3D printers into producing everything from candy (using sugar frosting) to printed circuit boards for keyboards, with achievements of greater complexity and utility expected to come.
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References
- Photo Credit Caratteri image by Marco Capurso from Fotolia.com "woodblock print"- japanese street fashion image by Tamara Kulikova from Fotolia.com ink cartridges image by itsallgood from Fotolia.com
