Was Johannes Gutenberg the Steve Jobs of his day?

Johannes Gutenberg and his invention has intrigued me for just about as long as I have been in this business. There is however not much historically know about arguably one of the most important inventors of our times. There was a great fictional book though, which used all historic facts know and filled in the rest with ideology and other common ways of things back in those days called, “The Justification of Johann Gutenberg” by Blake Morrison and it is a book I recommend for anyone in desktop publishing and certainly printing and prepress.

Thus, it was with great interest I clicked through to this article on WIRED.com (via a Tweet I believe):

Feb. 3, 1468: Closing the Book on Gutenberg

“1468: Johannes Gutenberg dies in Mainz, Germany. His name lives on.

Gutenberg made one contribution to technology in particular and to civilization in general, but it was a doozy. The printing press made the mass production of printed material possible and revolutionized human communication.”
Read More http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/02/0203gutenberg-dies#ixzz0eYsw6Y53  Read more... (750 words, 1 image, estimated 3:00 mins reading time)

A little Thanksgiving preparation fun – In honor of Johannes Gutenberg, the founder of movable type and the modern printing press:

Gutenburgers–The Newest Hottest Fast Food Restaurant in Town – (Video)

Save FreeHand! They call themselves FREE FreeHand, but let’s face it, when you are up against such factors as ex Macromedia and the mighty Adobe, a miraculous “save” (I guess they would settle for an effective “import”) comes to mind…
http://www.freefreehand.org/

Yes, you read it correctly. I guess there are a lot of Spaniards on their list, for last I heard, Spain was one place that would not give up their favorite vector drawing app that easily.

FlightCheck supports preflighting FreeHand 11.0 (MX) down to version 7. Although not on our short-list for other file formats to add to our new indexing, search and text extraction technology, PageZephyr, it would also make sense to be added here in the future.

Free Freehand aims actually state this VERY PROBLEM that legacy files pose and Markzware, with it’s file format conversion knowledge, often helps solve:

“We want FreeHand to have a future. Not only because we love to work with it, but also because we have thousands of files from the past we may need access to on any given occasion (well, they open in AI, but are converted into chaos).” SOURCE: http://www.freefreehand.org/index.shtml  Read more... (572 words, 1 image, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)

While reading, “Symbols: the alphabet of human thought” I came across an interesting one regarding printers and publishers from hundreds of years ago. The orb and cross was the symbol most used by them to leave their mark (aka a “printers mark”* or logotype*; as in the colophon), in the days just after Johannes Gutenberg founded moving type and the modern printing press:

This semester we will be looking at printer’s devices (symbols) used to identify the printer or publisher of a book. Many early printers use the orb and the cross which signified the earth and Christianity, shown above left. This particular version is the mark of Joannes de Colonia of Venice, 1481. Image source orb

On the right is a contemporary printer’s mark by Paul Moxon for his Fameorshame press. He explains, “A related sign the orb and cross, ‹literally the earth surmounted by the cross› is also the alchemical symbol for antimony an ingredient in type metal. Long before the development of printing, the 4 had been a mark of merchants to identify their wares. … 20th century master bookmen who have adapted the orb and four include: Warren Chappell and Fritz Kredel, Koch, & Giovanni Mardersteig, among others, chose the orb and cross. Moxon quote and image source
Source: http://www.designhistory.org/symbols.html  Read more... (415 words, 1 image, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

With a title like, “Print Isn’t Dead” makes it hard not to click on, especially for people from the printing trade. Here we read in Forbes about how the ancient craft of letterpress printing is making a comeback:

“Letterpress is a method of printing text and images by laying paper onto a raised surface that has been inked and applying considerable pressure. Its roots go back to 2nd-century Chinese woodblock printing, through 15th-century movable type and on into the rotary presses of the mid-19th century.

A decade ago you could pick up a discarded press for a few hundred bucks. David Jury, a 60-year-old typography expert and author in Colchester, England, bought one in 1996 and began printing his own books and stationery, helping to kick off a minirevival of letterpress artifacts that now include embossed wedding invitations, calendars, limited-edition prints and one-of-a-kind objets. Take that, paperless society.”
Source: http://www.forbes.com/global/2009/0608/hatch-show-print-letterpress-revisted.html

The article highlights how having a small press and print-shop operation is making a come-back in NYC and across the States really. The quality and feel is better than commercial printing.  And they continue with this little bit;  Read more... (353 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

A few years ago, I visited Dalim Software in Strasburg with my colleague, David Dilling. This is the home of Johannes Gutenberg, the founder of the movable type printing press. (Check it out as we wondered allowed Would Gutenberg have use FlightCheck?)