"The essence of writing and lettering, according to typographer Fernand Baudin, is to make language visible and retrievable. Spoken words pass away; written words are here to stay. "
- Type is the basic building block of print production.
- Our Western alphabet was invented by the Phoenicians around 1100BC
- Capital letters derive from Roman incised lettering, with its distinctive serifs.
- Lower-case lettering comes from a more rounded form of handwriting, known as the uncial.
- In the middle ages, scribes or scriveners created all books by hand, usually copying from existing books.
- A font is a complete set in one size of all letters of the alphabet, complete with associated ligatures, numerals, punctuation marks and any other signs and symbols.
- The spacing between lines of type is called leading.
- In books and magazines, it is usual to see columns of type with neat edges on both sides. This is called justified setting, and it is achieved by introducing variable amounts of space between words.
- Text is the "meaning" part of type: just plain words plus the spaces between them, devoid of any information about the typefaces, sizes, measures, or weights being used. In print production raw text is called copy.
- Copy fitting is assessing how much space text will take up in a printed document.
- According to Joseph Muller Brockman (1914-96), unornamented sans-serif typefaces expressed the age and were suitable or any job.
- Each typeface has its own distinctive characteristics, called earmarks named after the distinctive "ear" on the lower case g. These enable us to identify one design from another.
- For legibility, context is everything. Novels, cookery books and telephone directories are all read in different ways. The designer has to know the conditions in which the type will be read, who will be reading it and why.
- Hand lettering and calligraphy is the least expensive way to produce a book or magazine or any other publication, but you must have a lot of time for this method.
- Phototypesetting, or photo-setting was first demonstrated to the American Newspaper Publishers' Association in 1949 by Rene Higgonet and Louis Marius Moyroud, but did not become popular until the 1960s.
- Before PostScript and TrueType, fonts were stored as arrays of dots called bitmaps.
- Line means solid areas, dots, or lines of single colour, with no graduation of tone.
- An additional colour used as a design element in a layout is called flat colour, or sometimes match or spot colour.
- The Pantone Matching System is an industry-standard collection of over 1000 colours that printers recognise and are comfortable using.
- Flat colour can be printed solid or as a percentage tint.
- A duotone is a superimposition of a contrasty black halftone over one-colour halftone, which is shot for highlights and middle tones, using the same image.
- Defining colour can be described as the four colour process CMYK or another system is known as RGB.
- Pantone's Hexachrome system uses six colours: brighter (fluorescent) versions of CMYK plus vivid orange and green.
- There are technical constraints in planning your layout. Paper comes in stock sizes and so do printing plates.
- The layout of columns, margins and area for text and images is usually marked out as a grid.
- Before computers, a grid was drawn out on to a board or sheet of heavy paper in non-reproducing blue pencil for a one-off publication.
- Novels and most small-format books are usually set in one column.
- Horizontal lines built into the grid can be used to impose further discipline on the layout.
- Imposition is the term used for the planning of pagination in folders, magazines, or books in a pattern such that when the printed sheet of paper is folded and trimmed., the resulting pages back up correctly and run consecutively.
SUMMARY
On press is that part of the production process over which the graphic designer has the least amount of hands-on control. What the designer does possess, however, is the power of selection. An appropriate choice of paper, ink and printer should ensure a predictable outcome, given the designer's input is as near perfect as can be, and bearing in mind the merits and limitations of the various printing processes.
Paper, ink and the printing process are all interlinked. The size of the print run and the budget for the job are also important considerations. Offset litho and letterpress demand thick and sticky inks; conversely, the inks for gravure and flexography need to be thin and runny. Consequently, gravure and flexo are able to print at high speed on to relatively poor stock - and flexo can print on to the most difficult surfaces. Flexo and gravure cylinders are expensive to produce, and so the process is only viable for large print runs.
Most designers will spend most of their careers working with offset lithography, which is perhaps the most economical versatile process of all. It is also important to evaluate the relative advantages and constraints of a process and modify the design appropriately. The expected end use of a printed product and the budget are key factors in the choice of perfect binding.
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