Printing companies in los angeles

A Brief History of Printing Despite the recent innovations that allow us to read messages, newspapers, and books on pocket-sized screens, the love for the printed word lives on. But behind the hundreds of printing companies in Los Angeles, New York, and London is a long history of printing that changed the world The development of printing dates far back to Mesopotamia where the Sumerians used cylinder seals to reproduce images on clay tablets. Printing innovations occurred throughout the beginning of the Common Era, such as the invention of paper, movable type, and type characters cast from bronze.

While China and Japan used woodcut, countries in Europe employed scribes to handwrite copies of text, making books a rare treasure. The 15th century saw the beginning of movable type in Europe. An early printing machine employed the woodcut relief technique where texts and images were carved into blocks of wood and used as stamps. In 1436, Guttenberg revolutionized printing when he began working on his printing press, an invention that would revolutionize printing. A four-year effort, the wooden press used movable metal type and printed forty lines per page. The Bible was the first text printed on the Guttenberg press.

Thirty years after the debut of the Guttenberg, the dry point engraving technique came onto the printing scene. Instead of carving onto wooden or bronze blocks, images were incised onto copper plates. By the end of the 15th century, over 250 European cities had access to printing.

By the 18th century, engraved images were produced in color. Using metal plates, German painter Jakob Christof Le Blon, innovated the mezzotint method. Le Blon inked three engraved plates different colors (red, yellow, and blue) along with a fourth plate for black lines to produce color images. His innovation is considered the foundation for modern color printing. This innovation, along with the development of lithography, people were able to print elaborate color illustrations.

The 20th century saw the developments of lithographic offset press and screen printing. Printing reached two milestones in the 1930s: the first successful series of paperbacks and the Xerox machine.

The next time you visit printing companies in Los Angeles to get your business cards, letterheads, or wedding invitations printed, you can appreciate printing’s long and exciting evolution.