The Life and death of the Wood-Type Poster
So as display type expanded in size, printers and founders experienced increasing problems. For example, during the casting process, it was difficult to keep the metal in liquid form while pouring. Uneven cooling occurred because of this and, in turn, resulted in slightly concave printing surfaces. With time, printers found large metal cast types to be excessively expensive, brittle and heavy. In response to this problem Darius Well began to experiment with hand-carved wooden types. In 1827 he successfully invented a lateral router that enabled the economical mass manufacture of wood types for display printing. In contrast to the metal types, wooden types were durable, light and less than half as expensive as large metal types. Shortly after this invention Wells launched the wood-type industry with his first specimen book in 1828.
In 1834 William Leavenworth combines the pantograph with the router. Because of this, new wood-type fonts were so easily produced and distributed that customers were asked to submit sketches of a new font designs they designed. Manufacturers offered to design and produce the entire font, based on the sketches submitted by the public, without an additional charge for design and pattern drafting.
The demand for public posters from clients, ranging from traveling circuses and vaudeville troupes to clothing stores and new railroads, lead to poster houses specializing in letter-press display material.
In the 18th century book and newspaper printers shoved job printing to the sidelines. Designing at poster houses in the 20th century didn't involve graphic designers (their loss). The compositor lead consultations, during which he will select and compose the type, rules, ornaments and wood-engraved or metal-stereotyped stock illustrations that filled the type faces. The range of typographic sizes, styles, weights and ornaments were limitless, and the design philosophy was to use it.
Decisions regarding design were pragmatic (which means "very practical" in short). Long words or body text was set up in condensed fonts where as expanded fonts were used for short words or text. Important words were emphasized with the largest font available and manageable. See what I mean by "pragmatic"? By this times, wood and metal types were used together freely.
Printing houses started to feel the strain of the competitive edge the improving lithographic process gave to the industry. Consequently printing houses started declining in 1870, because lithography could offer people more vibrant and pictorial designs that the printing press could not. It wasn't merely lithography that drove printing houses to closing their doors though. Their clientele, like traveling entertainment shows, declined while that of the lithography companies', like magazines and newspapers who required pictorial content, increased. The restricting legislation on posting notices drove commercial communications away from this medium right into the welcoming and technologically advanced arms of lithography. The the end of the 19th century the numbers of printing firms declines to such an extend that they were almost extinct.
In 1834 William Leavenworth combines the pantograph with the router. Because of this, new wood-type fonts were so easily produced and distributed that customers were asked to submit sketches of a new font designs they designed. Manufacturers offered to design and produce the entire font, based on the sketches submitted by the public, without an additional charge for design and pattern drafting.
The demand for public posters from clients, ranging from traveling circuses and vaudeville troupes to clothing stores and new railroads, lead to poster houses specializing in letter-press display material.
In the 18th century book and newspaper printers shoved job printing to the sidelines. Designing at poster houses in the 20th century didn't involve graphic designers (their loss). The compositor lead consultations, during which he will select and compose the type, rules, ornaments and wood-engraved or metal-stereotyped stock illustrations that filled the type faces. The range of typographic sizes, styles, weights and ornaments were limitless, and the design philosophy was to use it.
Decisions regarding design were pragmatic (which means "very practical" in short). Long words or body text was set up in condensed fonts where as expanded fonts were used for short words or text. Important words were emphasized with the largest font available and manageable. See what I mean by "pragmatic"? By this times, wood and metal types were used together freely.
Printing houses started to feel the strain of the competitive edge the improving lithographic process gave to the industry. Consequently printing houses started declining in 1870, because lithography could offer people more vibrant and pictorial designs that the printing press could not. It wasn't merely lithography that drove printing houses to closing their doors though. Their clientele, like traveling entertainment shows, declined while that of the lithography companies', like magazines and newspapers who required pictorial content, increased. The restricting legislation on posting notices drove commercial communications away from this medium right into the welcoming and technologically advanced arms of lithography. The the end of the 19th century the numbers of printing firms declines to such an extend that they were almost extinct.
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