of Printof Print

The initial concepts of printing began over 2000 years ago. Since then it has had many incarnations and developed into a process that is integral to society and our modern way of life. This timeline explores the innovations and developments of printing techniques from the invention of paper through to the use of printing within the home.

BCE CE

The invention of paper. The first printing is done in China, using ink on carved wooden blocks.

140-86BCE140-86BCE 618CE618CE

The worlds earliest datable book, the Diamond Sutra, is printed.

Movable type is invented in Korea, a technique credited to Wang Zhen.

868 1300

The Diamond Sutra (Jingang-jing) is printed throughout from wood blocks on a paper scroll measuring 265 x 5250 mm. The text is a Chinese version of one of the most important Buddhist writings.

1377 1400

The earliest surviving book is printed using bronze moveable type in Korea.

Laurens Coster works with moveable type in the Netherlands. However, he is not credited with the invention of movable type in the west.

1423 1455

The earlist dated hand coloured wood cut is produced.

Gutenberg invents the printing press and moveable type cast from metal. He also invents the adjustable moulds for type to accommodate the widths of different letterforms. A new type of ink is also developed for use with the printing press, as current inks did not adhere to the printing surface without creating blurs.

Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible is printed.

This hand-coloured devotional woodcut of St Christopher survived because it was preserved in an early fifthteenth century manuscript.

1457 1476

Latin Psalter is printed throughout in colours and shows the efforts printers made to emulate the coloured manuscripts of the time Created using two interlocking parts, one black and one colour, inked separately and then placed together in the press.

William Caxton beings using the Gutenberg printing press in England.

Printed in 1457 by Fust and Schoffler in Mainz, Germany.

1493 1495

Albrecht Durer transformed woodcutting into a suitable monochrome process by suggesting tone and texture using hatching.

The first paper mill is opened in England.

A 1498 woodcut by Durer; from a series of fifteen 394 x 287mm woodcuts.

1501 1550

Italic type is first used. Wallpaper is introduced in England.

1660 1702

Mezzotint is invented in Germany.

Mezzotint is used by Jacob LeBon to create full colour images using three or four separately printed colours. Initially a very slow and expensive process, therefore mainly used for special classes of work.

Left: A mezzotint portrait of Cardinal de Fleury printed in three separations of yellow, blue and red.

Far left: Three separations used to print the final portrait. Bottom left shows the combined effect of the yellow and blue plates.

1725 1797

Stereotyping is invented in Scotland by William Ged. The process involves a whole page of type being cast in a single mould so that a printing plate can be made from it.

Thomas Berwick develops the ‘wood-engraving’ process. A more refined version of woodcuts, where the image stood in relief and was therefore able to be printed along side type in a press.

This ‘wood engraving’ technique was frequently used in illustrated books and journals in the nineteenth century.

1798 1800

Lithography printing is invented.

A colour print is made using 29 woodblocks by letterpress printer William Savage in London.

First iron printing press is introduced by Stanhope. It helped to increase output and many other iron platen presses followed this.

1814 1816

The Koenig powered cylinder press is introduced. The entire process for using this press was mechanical apart from feeding of sheets, which was done by hand.

William Caslon IV develops the first sans-serif typeface.

1820 1829

Embossed printing is invented by Louis Braille. The characters are made up of variations of raised dots embossed into paper.

Lithography starts to spread outside of Germany. It begins to replace letterpress and copperplate printing due to the ease and low costs of production.

American, Jacob Perkins replaces copper with steel as the surface for intaglio (creating a hollow in the plate) printing as the plates were tougher and therefore gave longer print runs. Perkins’ firm in Britain printed the Penny Black postage stamps.

1837 1840

Godfrey Engelmann patents Chromoliography, a process that outstripped all other colour printing processes. Similar to Mezzotint, Chromolithography used separate plates and coloured inks to create one image.

The first working machine for composing type was the Pianotyp. Operated by two people; one working the keyboard and the second inserting spacing between the words and justifying the line.

1851 1878

The Diamond Sutra (Jingang-jing) is printed throughout from wood blocks on a paper scroll measuring 265 x 5250 mm. The text is a Chinese version of one of the most important Buddhist writings.

The first mechanized lithography press is patented by Austrian engineer Sigl. It had automatic inking and damping and could be worked by steam or by hand.

Photogravure printing is invented by Karl Klic. By the late 1880s the gravure process was often used to illustrate high-quality books with photographs.

1880 1890

Mechanical tints were invented by Benjamin Day in America. Consisting of lines, dots and other patterns, that could be used by lithography draughtsmen to get tonal effects quickly. Chromolithography provided late-nineteenth century society with a huge range of colour printed artefacts, from manuscripts to throwaway scraps.

The first Aniline (flexography) press is built in Liverpool.

59 chromolithographed images. Economy here is evident from the way in which the images are made to fit the available space.

1892 1900

Due to the industrial revolution the majority of printing processes were mechanized to some degree by the end of the nineteenth century.

This is the lithographic machine room of a company that specialised in printing playing cards.The machines are printing from stone, which was still in common use in this period.

4-colour rotary press is invented.

1904 1907

The first comic book is published.

The commercial silk screen is patented in Manchester by Samual Simon.

Funnies on Parade, published by Dell Publishing in America.

1938 1950

Chester Carlson invents theXerox copying process using electrostatic energy. Xerography provides the foundation of modern laser printing.

Offset Lithography becomes the dominant form of commercial printing.

The first Xerox image is a handwritten note, printed in America.

1957 1963

The Helvetica typeface family is developed.

The first Pantone colour matching system is developed by Lawrence Herbert.

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1970 1975

The first Personal Computers are manufactured.

IBM release the first commercial laser printer, which combines laser technology and electrophotography. The technology speeded the printing of bank statements, premium notices, and other high-volume documents. Some of these models are still in use today.

1976 1984

The inkjet printer is invented. The first (Apple) Macintosh personal computer is introduced. It uses a mouse and graphical user interface (images rather than code).

1987 1988

Layout design software QuarkXpress is released for Macintosh computers. It quickly becomes widely used by page designers, typesetting industry and printers.

Inkjet printers become a home consumer item with Hewlett-Packard’s release of the DeskJet inkjet printer, priced at $1000.

An Introduction to PrintInformation collated by Alexandra Bucktin

Design Context 2010