2. Books have always been playing
an important role in the life of
people. Due to the development of
science and culture the amount of
manuscript books could not
satisfy the needs of society, so
typography appeared. They say
that it was invented twice: in China
and in Germany.
3. But where was typography invented
first?
Who invented it?
What was special about it?
We will tell about it in our
presentation.
4. The first method of mechanical
reproduction of books was xylography or
woodblock printing. It appeared in the
Buddhist temples of China in Tang Dynasty
(618-907). It is believed that in the IX
century woodblock printing was the fastest
and cheapest way. The oldest woodblock
printed book was Diamond Sutra and now
it is in the British Museum.
5. Woodblock printing technique was simple. A
woodblock was carefully prepared as a relief
pattern. The text was carved with a knife and
then it was filled with paints. The pattern was
covered with a list of paper to obtain imprint.
Some separate sheets were glued, first in the
form of scrolls, later they were assembled in a
book.
6. In 1040 the quick printing system was created
by Pi Sheng. He modeled clay blocks,
squeezed hieroglyphs with a stick on them,
then he fired them. The metal type was first
invented in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty
(around 1230).
Printing spread early to Korea and Japan,
but the techniques were also used in
Vietnam. The number of other scripts was
invented.
Printing techniques never spread to the
Islamic world.
7. Typography in Europe
People were eager to be educated and in the
Middle Ages the number of books, which were
hand-copied by monks, could not satisfy the
growing needs of people.
At the beginning of the 13th century people
began to cut out pictures with a text on the
boards. First it was rather short. Later the text
took up more space.
8. Typography in Europe
In Europe a xylographic book
appeared after the crusades. There
were several ways of printing: the
shape of the letters were retained on
the thin metal boards and then those
letters were cut out. During the
process of printing the letters were
white and all the rest was black.
9. The society`s needs for paper money and
printed icons caused the development of a new
and low-cost technique. The large production of
printed papers began in 1425. First the print
was placed on one side of a sheet. Such
publications were called anopistograf. The
book with print on both sides was called
opistograf.
Typography in Europe
10. One of the first secular xylographic
books were "Calendar" of
Regiomontanus from Königsberg
and "The Bible of the poor." They
had wide sheets with biblical
pictures, characters and their
explanations. The first xylographic
books were widely available, but in
the middle of the XVI century they
disappeared.
Typography in Europe
11. Typography in Europe
The idea of type-setting belonged to Hans
Gensfleysh or Johann Gutenberg (1394/1399-
1468). Scientists believed that Gutenberg
printed his first book in 1450-1455 . It was
“The Bible” which had 42 text lines printed
in two columns on each page. It had 1282
pages!
Typography in Europe
12. The second half of the XV century
was the time of widespread printing in
Europe, which appeared in many
countries: Italy (1465), Switzerland
(1468), France, Hungary, Poland
(1470), England
(1476), Austria, Denmark, etc. Books
that had been published before 1500
were called incunabula. European
books printed between 1500 and 1550
were usually called palaeotypes.
Typography in Europe
13. By 1500 more than ten million copies of books
were published in Europe (including the Slavonic
language). Strolling printers with their equipment
visited monasteries, universities, castles of lords
and lived there, satisfying the needs for printed
production.
There were 1099 printing houses during the
period of incunabula . They, however, went
bankrupt, and at the beginning of the XVI century
two hundred of them remained in Europe.
Typography in Europe
14. Typography in RussiaTypography in Europe
In the middle of the XVI century typography
was spread in Russia. The development of
manufacturing and crafts led to the technical
requirements. Handwritten books were to be
forced out by more perfect and productive
printing. But there was one problem. Most of
the books were useless, their contents were
distorted and they had a lot of errors.
Such books gave rise to heresy. The question
of correcting the church books was considered
by Metropolitan Macarius in 1551.
15. Typography in Russia
The government searched for those
people who could learn the art of
printing. The attempt to establish
typography in Moscow with the help of
foreigners failed. But it did not mean that
Russian printers didn`t know the art of
typography which was applied in many
European countries.
Foreign influence could be seen in the
first Russian books.
16. Typography in Russia
In the middle of the XVI century the
group of talented masters from
Moscow worked on the development
of typography. The technique of their
work was imperfect. But there was a
man who made a significant
contribution to the Russian printing. It
was the first Russian printer Ivan
Fedorov. He was a gifted and talented
person who made the first dated book
“Apostle”.
17. The period of incunabula was the time of
improving the printing process. Printed
illustrations in the books were made. One of
the first illustrated books was "Ship of Fools"
(1494) by S. Brant. It was decorated with
engravings of Albrecht Durer.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century
the idea of using a print cylinder instead of a
flat press was invented. But it was not
developed. In 1787 Wilhelm Haas invented the
world's first metal printing press.
Typography in Russia
18. In 1811 the German printer Friedrich Koenig,
using the idea of printing cylinders, created the
first mechanical machine for flat printing. The
cylinder of this machine was powered by steam. It
allowed to increase the productivity of printing.
In 1818 Koenig and Bauer patented two-cylinder
printing machine for duplex printing.
In 1846 the Englishman Augustus Applegate made
a machine that was able to print 12,000 sheets per
hour. In 1862 it was replaced by a more powerful
machine created by the American Robert Goe.
19. Nowadays printing technology is highly developed
and 1,275 billions of books are published annually in
the world. There are many other printed products such
as magazines, newspapers, posters, etc. In fact, there
are four types of printing now:
Printing is an integral part of modern life, but
nowadays books are replaced by computers and the
Internet. We hope that books will not disappear and
they will always be the source of knowledge.
- High print
- Gravure
printing- Lithography
- Screen printing
