The history of typography

The history of typography

Students: Pribytkova K.

Pribytkova D. Teacher: Grigorieva

V.A.

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.

But where was typography invented first?Who invented it? What was special about it? We will tell about it in our presentation.

Typography in Asia

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.

The first printing press was invented in China!

Typography in Asia

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.

Typography in AsiaTypography in Asia

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.

Typography in AsiaTypography 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.

Europe!

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.

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.


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.



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!


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.


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 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.

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.

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”.

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 EuropeTypography in Russia


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.


Now

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


Thanks for attention!

Education

The history of typography