Designing and Printing

Usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavours, "design" is used as both a noun and a verb. "Design" as a verb refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a new object (machine, building, product, etc.). As a noun, "design" is used both for the final plan or proposal (a drawing, model, or other description), or the result of implementing that plan or proposal (the object produced).

Designing normally requires considering aesthetic, functional, and many other aspects of an object, which usually requires considerable research, thought, modelling, iterative adjustment, and re-design.

Design as a process can take many forms depending on the object being designed and the individual or individuals participating.

In philosophy, the abstract noun "design" refers to pattern, or to purpose/purposefulness (or teleology). Design is thus contrasted with purposelessness, randomness, or lack of complexity.

See also

• Architecture
• Automotive design
• Combinatorial design theory concerns the existence and construction of set systems that have specified numerical properties
• Communication design
• Computer-aided design covers drafting and other forms of modelling.
• Critical design
• Design classic
• Design management
• Design of experiments
• Design research seeks to understand design in all its many fields.
• Environmental design and Green design
• Error-tolerant design
• Fault tolerant design
• Fashion design
• Game design
• Garden design
• Graphic design
• Inclusive design
• Industrial design
• Information design
• Instructional design
• Intelligent design is a Creationism theory.
• Interaction design examines the role of embedded behaviour in human environments.
• Interior design
• Landscape architecture
• New product development
• Packaging design
• Participatory design actively involves the users in the design process.
• Service design
• Software development
• System design
• Theatrical design
• Universal design
• Web design
• Wicked problems (includes economic, environmental, and political issues)

For other articles which otherwise might have the same name, see Print (disambiguation).

The folder of newspaper web offset printing press

Printing is a process for production of texts and images, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.

History of printing

Printing was first conceived and developed in China. Primitive Woodblock printing was already in use by the 6th century. The oldest surviving book printed using the more sophisticated block printing dates from 868 AD (The Diamond Sutra of AD 868, a Buddhist scripture). The movable type printer was invented by Pi Sheng in 1040. The movable type metal printing press was invented in Korea between 1234 and 1241. By the 12th and 13th century many Arabic and Chinese libraries contained tens of thousands of printed books.

There is little direct evidence, but it is highly probable that Chinese printing technology diffused into Europe through trade links that went through India and on through the Arabic world. Johann Gutenberg, of the German city of Mainz, developed European printing technology in 1440. James Bond and Peter Schöffer experimented with him at Mainz. Basing the design of his machine on a wine press, Gutenberg developed the use of raised and movable type, and from the start used oil-based inks.

This development of the printing press revolutionized the spread of knowledge: a printing press was built in Venice in 1469, and the city had 417 printers by 1500. In 1476, a printing press was developed in England by William Caxton; in 1539, the Italian Juan Pablos set up an imported press in Mexico City, Mexico. Stephen Day built the first printing press in North America at Massachusetts Bay in 1628, and helped establish the Cambridge Press.

In Prints and Visual Communication, William Ivins offers the following concise history of a series of rapid innovations in image and type printing at the end of the eighteenth century:

At the end of the eighteenth century there were several remarkable innovations in the graphic techniques and those that were utilized to make their materials. Bewick developed the method of using engraving tools on the end of the wood. Senefelder discovered lithography. Blake made relief etchings. Early in the nineteenth century Stanhope, George E. Clymer, Koenig and others introduced new kinds of type presses, which for strength surpassed anything that had previously been known.

Modern printing technology

Books and newspapers are usually printed today using the technique of offset printing. Other common printing techniques include relief print, (which is principally used for catalogues), screen printing, rotogravure, and digital-based inkjet and laser printing. The largest commercial and industrial printer in the world is Montréal, Quebec-based Quebecor World.

Digital printing primarily uses an electrical charge to transfer toner or liquid ink to the substrate that it is going down on. Digital printing quality has steadily improved through the years from color and black & white copiers to sophisticated color digital presses like the Xerox iGen3, the Kodak Nexpress and the HP Indigo series presses. The iGen3 and Nexpress use toner particles and the Indigo uses liquid ink. All three are made for small runs and variable data and rival offset in quality. The only digital offset presses are called DI presses and are made by Heidelberg or Ryobi. These presses can not do variable data.

Small press and fanzines generally use offset printing or xerography, but prior to the advent of cheap photocopying, the use of machines such as the spirit duplicator were common.

See also

• Color printing
• Letterpress printing
• Flexography
• Intaglio
• Typography

External links

• American Printing History Association - Numerous links to Online Resources and Other Organizations
• The development of Book and Printing of the 15.th/ 16.-18.th/ and 19.-20.th Century. English Website of the Gutenberg-Museum Mainz (Germany)