| Subject: Re: Preserving the lost art of letterpress |
Author:
mark farmer
| [ Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 20:03:28 11/26/14 Wed
In reply to:
Wes
's message, "Re: Preserving the lost art of letterpress" on 15:25:57 11/03/14 Mon
This is stretching the memory cells, but I remember an old lino type on The Twilight Zone. Several scenes where the old typesetter writes a story before it happens. I was fascinated by the machine.
On The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, isn't the newspaper man setting type when he is beaten up by the bad guys?
I enjoy the depth & variety of the contributions of the forum ... really, we're too good for Wes but he's all we have.
>Although it's been many years since we've done any
>letterpress work, at the place where I work we still
>keep some of the old time stuff around, mostly a few
>trays of type, just to remind us of where we came from.
>
>I'm probably one of the last people in the news
>business who has set type by hand. I never did it very
>much and never really learned my way around a
>California job case, but I can at least say I did it.
>There have been many revolutions in the technology
>since then, and I do things with the click of a mouse
>today that I would never have dreamed possible when I
>started out -- mostly because it wouldn't have been
>possible.
>
>Letterpress, at least as far as newspapers go, is
>pretty much a dead issue. There are a couple places
>left in job printing where it's convenient if you
>happen to have the equipment sitting around, and there
>are a few old timers who still have it.
>
>I remember one night back in the early '90s during all
>the turmoil following the fall of the Communist Party
>in Russia, when Boris Yeltsin shut down Pravda. Some
>TV reporter was doing an interview with some gal who
>had worked there for years, and I don't remember what
>she was saying because I was looking over her
>shoulder, to see a row of Linotypes! At the time
>Pravda was (or at least had been) arguably one of the
>most influential papers in the world, and they were
>still printing it with technology right straight out
>of the 1920s or thereabouts. That said an awful lot to
>me.
>
>I never learned how to run a Linotype -- they were not
>easy to learn, they were slow and obviously heading
>for the scrap yard at the time I started in the
>business. But, I'll tell you what, if you ever get a
>chance to watch one working, perhaps at a museum or
>something, take the time. There are cams and levers
>and pushrods and all sorts of things I don't have
>terms for, all working together in a beautifully
>choreographed mechanical dance. It's hard to believe
>they could work at all, let alone work as well as they
>did.
>
>We have come a long way since the days of the
>Linotype, but I can't help but wonder if we have lost
>something in the process.
>
>-- wes
>
>
>
>>Greetings
>>
>>For those of you who used to get ink on your fingers,
>>I came across an article on the BBC web site.
>>
>>The article is about John Barrett of Chicopee,
>>Massachusetts. He has a warehouse of old letterpress
>>printing equipment.
>>
>>
>>href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29855934">htt
>p
>>://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29855934
>>
>>Think in my early computer typesetting days I had more
>>fonts available than the local daily and weekly
>>newspapers. Typesetting has certainly changed in the
>>last 40 years or so.
>>
>>Brian
>>
>>--
>>Worcester, UK
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
] |
|
Feedback: 