Contrary to popular belief, Guttenberg did not invent printing; he invented the printing press. Printing itself began in China with wood-carved reliefs of each character that could be pressed onto a medium like silk. The Chinese also invented moveable type, too. However, early forms of printing were still expensive and time-consuming. Guttenberg’s printing press solved both of those problems. Even though it could take a full day to set one type tray, his metal letter molds and oil-based ink made presses more durable and faster, thus making books cheaper and more available to the public. Guttenberg’s printing press changed the world, and from 1430 on, we haven’t looked back.

Hand-scribing books meant limited books…and limited literacy

Before the printing press, books in Europe were hand-scribed, and thus with books difficult to come by and very expensive, few other than the elite could read. Granted, these books often contained beautiful calligraphy and artwork, and illuminated manuscripts were real works of art. The mass-produced books weren’t so beautiful, but they made information more accessible to a middle class that was becoming increasingly literate. The cheaper books were, the more literate the masses became.

Mass-production meant more freedom to disseminate information.

With books being more widely available to the public and cheap to buy and produce, more books, and thus, more ideas, could be shared. Before the printing press, the most commonly scribed book was the bible and the church had among her ranks most of the scribes; scientific and philosophical ideas couldn’t be so widely shared with the world. The Gutenberg press took the monopoly of publishing from the church and put the power into the hands of whoever could pay to run the printing press. Not only could more books be printed, but also pamphlets and other documents. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, for example, used broadsheets akin to today’s newspapers.

Newspapers inform us all

Even if it took one person a long time to set a type page, once it was set, it could keep printing pages repeatedly. Having a group of people setting type pages for a group of presses meant that multiple pages could be created and printed that day, giving rise to printed news. Newspapers arose in the 17^th century and became more widespread in Europe and the United States in the 18^th century. They’re essentially still the same as they’ve been for centuries. Whereas news could be largely shared by mouth through conversation, public decree, or other announcements, printed news could share the same facts and the same information with everyone who could read, reaching a larger audience more quickly. With the invention of the telegraph and then the telephone, regional, national, and world news could be disseminated daily, sometimes more ofte.

Books could be mass-produced for information and instruction.

Cookbooks, history books, and a variety of fiction and non-books became possible with the printing press. Ideas that were novel or even controversial, such as scientific theories, philosophies, or political ideas could reach a wide audience through use of the printing press. Anyone who could read a book could expand their horizons and teach themselves any subject they had the interest or stomach to learn. Without books, a country boy born in a one-room log cabin in rural Kentucky could learn math, language, history, and law despite having no one around him to teach him. This country boy in particular was Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States.

Knowledge became egalitarian.

For those who could read, could access books and newspapers, and had the curiosity and time to read could know just as much about a subject as someone who had a formal education if they read and retained enough. Books were still cheaper than tutors or private education, and in some places, books were much more readily available than a comprehensive formal education.

Those who could write and entice someone to publish the works for them or could afford to have their books published did so. This meant that visionaries didn’t have to rely on the approval of the establishment to get their works out there. For example, Walt Whitman, the father of modern poetry, was heavily involved in the printing and publishing of his book, Leaves of Grass. Thomas Paine’s self-printed Common Sense pamphlet advocated for the 13 American colonies to seek independence from Great Britain and was read widely in meeting places…and taverns.

The birth of the novel.

While the art of storytelling is something that we have always had with us, and classics and epics like the Iliad were hand-scribed on scrolls, the modern novel couldn’t have really existed without the printing press. In order to create a work of fiction to entertain a wide variety of people, the writer would need access to cheap, uniform printing methods. The easier it was to publish books, the more possibilities there were for writers to create and share works of fiction with others.

One press = uniformity in language.

Hand-scribed books were often full of errors or variations in spelling and grammar. However, with the printing press, spelling became uniform. In fact, the need to save space on a type page meant fewer extraneous letters and punctuation. Sharing information with a variety of people meant that they all had to understand what was being written and shared. Thus, over time, spelling and grammar became standardized. Lettering, too, became more simple and easy to read. Now, every written language also has a consensus of how words should be spelled and sentences written.

One of the most important factors to consider when printing is DPI, or dots per inch. Basically, DPI is a measure of special printing dot density which consists of the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within the span of 1 inch. When choosing a resolution, it’s all about determining the point at which you can no longer see the dots in an image. The more dots, the higher the quality of print.

It’s also helpful to point out that many resources, including the Android developer guide, use the term pixels per inch, or PPI, interchangeably with DPI. While these terms are similar in nature, PPI is technically the term used for monitors. (Monitors have pixels, not dots.) When discussing printing, DPI is the correct term and it can make a big difference in the sharpness of your printed work.

So with that brief overview, the question remains: What DPI should I use for my particular print job? As you may have guessed, the correct answer is, it depends. Below are some tips to consider when deciding on a DPI, as well as some suggestions for specific printing designs.

It’s (Mostly) About Viewing Distance

As mentioned above, the main focus (no pun intended) when choosing the correct DPI centers on the point at which you can no longer see the individual dots on a page. While the method of printing and the material may have a slight impact on the resolution, the viewing distance can be the difference between 300dpi and 1dpi. If you think about it, that makes sense.

Consider looking at a billboard on the side of the road. It’s rarely viewed closely, so a resolution of 20-50dpi is probably sufficient. However, when viewing a printed image on a menu for example, you’ll want a higher DPI so the print doesn’t look grainy or blurred. The key when considering DPI is to consider how far your viewer will be.

Choosing the Correct Material and Methods

In addition to contemplating the audiences viewing distance of an image, the printing method and material also have an impact when determining the correct DPI. The method and material will affect how sharp an image will be; the higher DPI used, the sharper the image. For example, the Print Handbook is printed using a stochastic screen which produces a finer detail than a halftone screen. The different material will produce a print that looks different when using 300dpi and 400dpi.

Conversely, there are other instances when the limiting factor is the paper/material or printing method and as a result, there is no need for 300dpi. One such example of this would be printing on coated vs. uncoated paper. Coated paper tends to hold detail much better than uncoated paper, and because of this limiting factor, you can likely get away with using 200-250dpi on uncoated paper whereas the same DPI would not be suitable for print on coated paper.

Choosing the correct DPI can indeed be the difference between a good and a great print. It is important to understand what DPI is and which DPI should be used for your specific print job. It’s also important to consider the distance at which the print will be viewed, as well as the print material and methods used. However, given all this, it’s typically better to err on the side of a larger DPI. You can rarely make the mistake of having too high a resolution. But it is very easy to use a low DPI and have your final result come out pixelated. In the end, go for too much detail as opposed to not enough. 

Contact Pel Hughes if you have more questions!

 

A signature is a group of pages that are printed, most likely on both sides of a single sheet of paper that once folded, trimmed, bound and cut, become a specific number of pages. The number of pages on a signature depends on your page size and the size of the press sheet they fit on.

Another term associated with a print signature is a less common term that is known as imposition.This is the placement and direction of pages that are in a signature. Some pages may appear upside down or backwards, but once the sheet is folded and cut, the pages will be in their proper position and sequence. It is the printer’s job to setup a signature’s imposition.

Printers will often speak of two kinds of spreads: reader spreads and printer spreads. When you open a brochure, page two is opposite from page three. This is a reader’s spread; it’s what the reader sees. If you take the brochure apart, you’ll see that page two is actually connected, through the binding, to another page near the back of the brochure. This is a printer spread; it’s what a printer prints.

 

How to create brilliant designs on a budget?

As a print designer you should take full advantage of working with print signatures to achieve maximum effect for your design concept and learn how to maximize the printing budget.

Instead of using the same paper stock for the whole brochure, you can use different papers and different combination of inks for each individual print signatures. The possibilities are endless for creating amazing brochures.

Each signature is a print run and for each print run, you have to choose a paper stock and the number of inks to be used. The number of inks you print per signature on a specific paper will not only affect your design concept, but the print budget directly.

When designing with print signatures, you also have to take into account from the start, your binding type. Your binding type always depends on the total amount of pages your brochure has, your design concept and the printing budget. By selecting different binding types, it will change the order in which print signatures are assembled in the final brochure, therefore giving you the ability to manage the order in which different papers are presented.

For example, when you use ‘saddle stitching’, first page will go with last page, second page with before last page and so on. If you use a ‘perfect bound’, signatures are stacked one after the other. In the case of a ‘spiral bound’, signatures are also stacked one after the other, but you can insert a single sheet pretty much anywhere and the brochure will lay flat when open. Understanding how different binding types work, is essential to get the most out of designing with print signatures. The ‘pull out’ is another, different type of signature. It could be considered a loose sheet, even though it’s folded, depending on where it’s inserted in the binding. But most pull outs are commonly inserted between two signatures, during the binding process.

The important thing to remember is that when it is bound together, when a job is laid out correctly, the right pages will almost magically turn up next to each other. The more the number of pages in a job, the tougher it is to lay it out correctly. A proof is always sent out before any printing is actually done and one of the things to check for is that all the pages have ended up in the correct order.

 

Did you know there is a professional way of folding paper? Yes. There is a correct way to make those crisp lines, and if you don’t believe us, go grab a cereal box and do a little experiment.

Take said cereal box and disassemble. Now take a square section of the box and fold it in half to create a clean, sharp line.

How’s it looking over there? We’re going to guess it’s looking neither clean nor sharp.

That’s why “scoring” exists in the great wide world of paper products. In short, scoring is the creation of a crease in a piece of paper that will allow it to fold easier and result in a better looking line.

This is achieved by creating a ridge in the paper with an indentation device, and that ridge is where the fold line will occur. Typically this line is made by using a piece of metal to compress the fibers of the paper in one small area in order to create a dip in the paper where it can easily fold.

You can score paper as it goes through the printing press (inline scoring) or you can score the paper after it is finished printing (offline scoring). We recommend offline paper scoring as it tends to be more precise and offer the printer greater control over the process.

 

So why score paper?

It’s all about looks. Scored paper is less likely to “buckle” or “crack” while being folded, and it decreases the chance that the folding process will hurt the ink that is delicately placed on the surface of the paper.

 

When should you score?

Scoring is most effective when used upon heavyweight papers like cardstock and cardboard. It makes sense that these varieties would be more resistant to our manipulations as they are thicker and more stubborn. Generally, the thicker the paper, the wider the score.

 

Tips for scoring paper:

• Only use new paper. Old paper tends to be dryer and less receptive to a successful score
• Always score with the grain of the paper, never against
• Score one practice piece before scoring an entire batch
• Once scored, fold the paper so the hinge is on the inside of the fold

 

If you have any additional questions about paper Scoring or any other printing or finishing operation, give Pel Hughes a call. We’re always happy to answer your printing related questions.