In the 19th century more change had come forth than the last 350 years in the print field. This was due to the simple fact that more printed materials were needed for entertainment and education. Techniques in reproduction, typefounding, and typesetting were all improved. The need for cheaper and faster typesetting was a must. Improved rates of casting and improved setting methods had to be implemented and discovered. Between 1820 and 1883 over 200 experimental machines were patented to do just that, mostly in America. The first typecasting machine to produce a finished product was in France by Foucher Freres in 1883. Mechanical metal typesetting died off as photographically generated typesetting systems were being developed and implemented. Instead of metal matrices the machine used film negatives. This electromechanical machine used valves, relays, and other electronic devices, and master film matrix was in the form of a revolving disc. Light was projected onto light sensitive photographic paper to produce lines of type. In the late 1960’s a third generation of photosetting machines were released improving speed by using cathode ray tubes to expose bromide paper. Finally a forth generation machine appeared in 1976, the Mono Lasercomp. This machine used lasers to expose design onto photographic paper allowing for greater precision and detail. Developments were fast and later knocked out entirely by digital printers and computers.
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Typography from the 19th to the 20th Century
Phototypesetting or “cold type” systems first appeared in the early 1960s and rapidly displaced continuous casting machines like the Linotype.
E M I G R E is a digital type foundry founded in Berkeley, California Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko. Coinciding with the advent of the Macintosh computer, Emigre really took advantage of the digital medium, similar to how many before took advantage of the technology at the time. There goal was not to imitate letterpress technequies like many have done in the past but to create on the computer for the computer. Bitmap design and dot matrix printing were two methods they focused on at first and then later vector-based design. In the 1880‘s C H RO M O L I T H O G R A P H Y became a method for making multi-color prints, stemming from the process of lithography. Alois Senefelder, a german man, was given credit for his documenting of his plans to print in color one day in the book Vollstaendiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey. Countries all over were looking for new ways to print in color. Though disputed on being the first, Godefroy Englemann of France was awarded the patent for the new process in July 1837.
Tech of the 19th and 20th Century
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