Following Johannes Gutenberg’s (1398–1468) invention of the printing press, modern printing emerged in the fifteenth century. The history of print, however, dates much further back. There will be two sections to this blog. Part one will cover the history of print from 3000 BC to the revolutionary invention of Gutenberg. Part two will provide a brief overview of the history of the industry up to the present.
Modern artifacts thought to date from 3000 BC and earlier provide evidence of printing techniques. These came from the region that is now Iraq, known as Mesopotamia. They were made using round seals, which were used to imprint images on clay tablets. Stamps were used by other ancient societies in Egypt and China to print on cloth. The Chinese later started printing on silk using wooden blocks.
The first “Acta Diurna” appeared around 130 BC, during the Roman Empire, which falls further behind in historical timeline. This can be regarded as the first newspaper ever published, and it is Latin for “Daily Acts.” But instead of being printed at the time, they were engraved onto metal or stone, from which scribes copied and dispersed them throughout the Empire’s provinces to spread ideas and news. This was a significant development because print and newspapers would go hand in hand for centuries until the present.
Bi Sheng, an alchemist, created the first printing press with movable type in China circa 1040 A.D. This was a significant technological advance because it made it possible to produce books or texts in large quantities much more quickly and effectively than had previously been possible. A few books created in the 12th century in China using the moveable typefaces baked in clay still exist. However, this method did not really catch on and the widespread use of wooden blocks continued in China due to the complexity of Asian writing systems.
Moveable type was first popularized by the Europeans, and Johannes Gutenberg created what is regarded as the first printing press in print history which happened around the middle of the 15th century. The mechanization of the transition from moveable type to print was what distinguished Gutenberg from his Chinese forerunners.
The first lithograph offset press was created in 1875 by Englishman Robert Barclay. It used two cylinders, one made with metal and other with hard stone to pull the object being printed onto through the press. However, Ira Washington Rubel’s discovery in America a few years later produced the true technological breakthrough. By happenstance, he discovered that the image would be transferred onto the rubber impression cylinder by the metal plate when using his lithographic press and failed to insert paper. The image would then appear on both the sides if paper was inserted into the machine. He was astounded to see how much better and crisper the image produced by the rubber impression was. He swiftly capitalized on his “error” and is recognized for having created the first offset printing press in the modern sense. Manufacturers of print machinery are just as competitive in the business to gain edge in the domain of capital investment as printers are with each other as they overpower each other to win over customers. Their products are high quality, waste reducing, and fully loaded with the newest UV and LED technologies.
