Any company that relies on printed materials to make a living should know a history of printing. A printed product or brochure can be the difference between success and failure for any business, particularly in marketing or advertising. This is not a difficult task with the advent of the internet. There are many ways to print on a variety of surfaces. For Gloucester Printers, visit https://bizstationery.co.uk/services/print-shop/
Print has been used by mankind for thousands of years. The earliest evidence dates back to 3,500BC, when Sumerians marked documents with clay using cylinder seals. The modern history of print begins with movable-type printing. It was the first printing method used to create printed materials. A piece of paper would be placed on a block of wood and the ink was applied using a primitive squeegee. This evolved into various types of presses such as the plate and block type, where plates were pressed against the wooden blocks to create impressions on the paper.
This new technology brought with it a new issue: smudging. The text became unreadable as the ink smudged onto the image. The printing company would apply a small amount of oil to the plate in order to prevent it from rubbing away.
Ink was another problem with traditional printing. Historically, printing companies bought large quantities and sold them to customers in smaller amounts. Printers loaded the ink on wooden blocks that were then attached to the press by tiny screws. The ink would seep through the wooden blocks as more ink was applied. It would then smear on the page and be absorbed by paper.
William Caxton invented the printing press in 1476, and by 1500, newspapers had been printed. At this time, few people were illiterate and so the news was spread by town criers. A new invention was made early in the history of printing: the engraving presses. The engraving press was a new invention that allowed printing companies to print both sides of a page simultaneously, which resulted in enlarged prints.
Copying books by hand before Gutenberg
Before Johannes Gutenberg built his press, getting a book or pamphlet in front of the public was close to impossible. Early methods of transferring ink to paper relied on rubbing or brushing it on, with limited success.
For most of the period before that, the only way to copy a text was to take it to an official scribe or a monastery, where teams of monks copied it out by hand. Their focus was mostly on the Bible and the lives of saints, bishops and popes, and copies were often decorated with gold leaf and coloured illumination. A single book could take years to finish.
That is why the press mattered so much. It made copying fast and repeatable, and it helped spread the Greek and Roman learning rediscovered during the Renaissance to far more readers than monks could ever reach.
Screen printing and how it developed
Screen printing is one of the oldest ways of putting an image onto a surface. It began in ancient China and later spread to Europe and America. The earliest designs were simple patterns, but as the method travelled, printers introduced far more intricate work, and that detail became the standard for much of the printed material we see today.
The principle is straightforward. Ink is pressed through a fine mesh screen, which can be made from plastics, glass or metal alloys, onto the material underneath, most often fabric such as cotton. Parts of the screen are blocked so that ink only passes through where the image should appear.
Related heat transfer techniques have widened the range of what can be produced, from simple vinyl decals and custom stickers to decorative objects and detailed artwork. They can print fine images onto many different materials and shapes, which shows how far the craft has come from its simple beginnings.