These days, the term
Movable Type is more likely to make people think of a blogging platform than anything involving paper, but it used to refer to the letters, words, and graphics typically cast in an alloy of lead, tin and antimony or carved from wood, that could be rearranged by a letterpress printer for each individual job. In an environment where toner serves most of our current printing needs, the endangered art of letterpress printing now has a roving champion. Her name is Kyle Durrie, and she is the proprietor of
Power and Light Press in Portland, Oregon. Back in March
she bought herself a 1982 Chevy step van, gutted it, and then installed a work area and a couple of printing presses in the back. She stocked it with a variety of type and ornaments and she is now driving it all over the U.S. teaching folks about the joys of printing with pressure. Maybe if you ask nicely,
she'll stop by your neighborhood and show you how to print, just like
Bi Sheng first did over a thousand years ago.
posted by Toekneesan
on Jul 26, 2011 -
12 comments
Solaris, Stanislaw Lem's 1961 masterpiece, has
finally been translated directly into English. The
current print version, in circulation for over 4 decades, was the result of
a double-translation. Firstly from Polish to French, in 1966, by Jean-Michel Jasiensko. This version was then taken up by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox who hacked together an English version in 1970. Lem,
himself a fluent English speaker, was always
scathing of the double translation. Something he believed added to the universal misunderstanding of his greatest work. After the relsease of
two film versions of the story, and decades of speculation, a new direct English translation
has been released. Translated by American Professor
Bill Johnston '
The Definitive Solaris' is only available as an audiobook for the time being. Copyright issues, hampered by
several, widely available, editions of the poor English translation may mean it is some time yet before a definitive print edition makes it
onto our bookshelves.
posted by 0bvious
on Jun 19, 2011 -
64 comments
Lorem Pixum — A placeholder image generator for web and print designers for any size or topic. Speed up your workflow during the development process.
posted by netbros
on Jun 12, 2011 -
24 comments
Criggo is a blog that posts amusing newspaper bloopers and oddities - bad headlines, poorly chosen pictures, strange advertisements, etc. The blog only has the past month's worth of posts, but it's archived in its entirety
here.
[more inside]
posted by flex
on Mar 25, 2011 -
15 comments
"
Graphic Atlas is a new online resource that brings sophisticated print identification and characteristic identification tools to archivists, curators, historians, collectors, conservators, educators, and the general public."
posted by lucia__is__dada
on Aug 13, 2010 -
2 comments
HELLO WORLD (SLYT) "Lego felt tip 110" printer connected to an Apple Mac. This is not a kit you can buy and does not use mindstorms. I designed/built/coded it all from scratch including analog motor electronics, sensors and printer driver, the USB interface uses a "wiring" board.
posted by grumblebee
on Jun 2, 2010 -
42 comments
How To Save Media Jason Ponti from Technology Review offers some suggestions as to how traditional print publishers might save themselves from becoming irrelevant.
posted by reenum
on Oct 12, 2009 -
30 comments
Almost three years ago, AOL started on a path towards being a "low-cost producer of high-quality content at scale" when they
purchase Weblogs, Inc. in late 2006. At the beginning of 2009,
AOL count[ed] more than 75 sites in its publishing portfolio and plans to add 30 more in the coming year, all gathered under
Media Glow. AOL currently has approximately 1,500 content-writing staff,
around 1,000 of those people are working full time for AOL, the rest are freelancing. That's twice the number from a year ago, and AOL has set the goal of doubling or tripling the total by next year. The TechCrunch article states that these writers include former journalists at BusinessWeek, New York Times, USA Today, ESPN, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Consumer Reports, Condé Nast and scores of regional and national newspapers and magazines.
In an interview, Marty Moe, SVP of AOL Media, said: "Principally, we have none of the legacy costs associated with producing print publications, for example. We don't own printing presses, or fleets of delivery trucks. We don't have the elaborate editorial structures geared to producing products over a printing press." (
via)
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 7, 2009 -
24 comments
Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print—the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. Most of these scenarios assume a gradual crossing-over, almost like the migration of dunes, as behaviors change, paradigms shift, and the digital future heaves fully into view. But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically,
what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jan 6, 2009 -
62 comments
"
The Magazineer is a blog about magazine design and print culture, written by people who love, and make, magazines."
{The most recent entry is by Jess, actually.}
posted by dobbs
on Jun 6, 2008 -
8 comments
Would you like a latte while I print that up for you?
The
Espresso Book Machine (
previously) that was in the
New York Public Library has just moved to the
Northshire Bookstore in Vermont. The beta versions of this portable book-making machine are pumping out paperbacks around a book a minute at the Open Content Alliance, The Library of Alexandria, The New Orleans Public Library, and the University of Alberta. The mass produced commercial version of the machine is scheduled to roll off the assembly line within the year and will be priced between $50,000 and $20,000. Combined with
one of these, publishing as we know it may never be the same.
[more inside]
posted by Toekneesan
on Mar 7, 2008 -
36 comments
People find printing Web pages too hard. Hewlett-Packard is devising ways to get people to print Web pages instead of reading them on-screen. Last month, H.P. bought
Tabblo (
previously), whose software creates templates that reorganize the photos and text blocks on a Web page to fit standard sizes of paper. H.P. wants to make the software a standard by making it ubiquitous like flash, java and Acrobat.
posted by pithy comment
on Apr 12, 2007 -
70 comments
Steath InkJet Printer Could Rock Industry I know that once your desktop printer reached a certain quality, you probably stopped caring about printing news at all. But suddenly there are a few breakthroughs to get excited about.
Kodak's first inkjet printers have cut ink cartridge prices in half,
Zink doesn't use ink at all and will fit in your pocket and now an Australian start-up is announcing a $200 printer that will print a page a second. And the inkjet connection to nanotechnology won't just mean cheaper printers. People are using inkjet heads to
print microchips and even
human cells.
Fab@Home is trying to replicate the
Altair phenomenon with 3D printers, and you can even get a
ZPrinter 450 industrial-strength 3D printer for less than $40,000. How long before the word print means serving yourself the latest Stephen King, a pair of glasses or even a new kidney?
posted by PeteNicely
on Mar 26, 2007 -
53 comments
The Espresso Book Machine. A
photocopier-size machine that can print and bind a paperback in a few minutes. This is the first fully-automatic book printer designed for retail locations, it is envisioned to be a kiosk. Current beta tests
in DC and New York Public Library, also in talks with the Internet Archive and others to support the growing world of online scanned books. Further out, Kinkos, Starbucks, etc.. could become major book sellers and the practice of overstocking (and discounted books) could be reduced. Machine will probably be about $100,000.
posted by stbalbach
on Sep 30, 2006 -
36 comments
The Alvin Lustig Archive - "Alvin Lustig's
contributions to the design of books and book jackets, magazines, interiors, and textiles as well as his teachings would have made him a credible candidate for the AIGA Lifetime Achievement award when he was alive...Lustig created monuments of ingenuity and objects of aesthetic pleasure." The archive collects over 400 examples of his book, architectural, and ad-design work (see also AIGA's list of
Lustig's Top-10 designs). Via
HOW magazine...
posted by tpl1212
on Dec 20, 2005 -
5 comments
NOISE is a global youth arts initiative (under 25s) that develops and profiles artists and their work across television, radio, in print and online. Requires Flash. [MI]
posted by sjvilla79
on Nov 15, 2005 -
3 comments
Help is needed to save the Imprimerie Nationale, one of the greatest repositories of typographic material in the world. (If you have ever used a Garamond revival, or a Didot or a Fournier, you are indebted to the Imprimerie.) Their collection, which spans four centuries, is scheduled to be dissolved in the next twelve months.
quoted from Jonathan Hoefler's email that posted by benson
to the typophile forums
posted by sixtwenty3dc
on Oct 21, 2004 -
5 comments
Testy Copy Editors is a site run by
WaPo Financial Copy Editor
Philip Blanchard, with guest columns and
discussions dedicated to blowing off steam for people in the occasionally tense business of making words fit, parse properly and make sense in print.
If you've actually edited copy under a deadline, or know someone who has, you know how thankless the job can sometimes be.
posted by chicobangs
on Sep 10, 2004 -
16 comments
Look no further than John Fiorillo's
Viewing of Japanese Prints for the definitive online resource on the art. Covering over three centuries of Japanese print making from
Ukiyo-e through
Shin Hanga and
Sôsaku Hanga,
Viewing has detailed histories and critiques of the artists, including such legendary masters as
Katsushika Hokusai. The site also includes a wealth of information on the artform itself, with essays on topics as varied as the
deciphering of prints and the various
forms of poetry found on them, as well as archival notes on
print fading. Have a question for the man himself? Shogun Gallery's
discussion board is one of his favorite haunts, where he helps users with questions ranging from signature identification to the allusions found within a specific print. Given the wealth of information and beauty of the work, this site's a treasure.
posted by J. R. Hughto
on Jul 31, 2002 -
9 comments
