Comments on: ❡ From my Printed Books professor

By: Tim Brown

Tim Brown — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:29:12 +0000

Robert, the bibles are beautiful. Thanks for showing me.

Folks, your enthusiasm is awesome. What we have to figure out are the conditions in which typography can be as stunning and rich in web context as it has been in other contexts throughout history.

What does the web have to offer the art of typography?

By: Götz

Götz — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:21:05 +0000

There’s always a starting point for new ways to publish words. Of course the web as it is now isn’t a typographer’s heaven. But Gutenberg had to improve, refine and extend the ways how to print letters, too. It wasn’t done in the first day.

So let’s improve typography in the web instead of throwing the whole thing away while thinking “aawww, it can’t do it and never will”. Let’s instead embrace and extend the future of the written word!

At the moment, we’re in the year of 1470 compared to when Gutenberg started and when the WWW took of – just a mere 20 years of experience. Have a look at what’s published in 1470 and what came afterwards: beautiful typography that was fine-tuned year after year. There’s a lot more to come for the web.

Sorry for my bad English, I’m not a native speaker.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:30:06 +0000

It might sound quaint and out of touch now, but at the time he said it, the web wasn’t such a friendly place for typography. Widespread lack of antialiasing alone would have made most of those beautiful typefaces look pretty bad.

So I don’t blame him for those words alone, although what mcloki said about preserving the past definitely reminds me of most of my studio arts professors. For the most part, they didn’t understand or trust modern design technology, and tended to regard it as a cheap solution for lazy people.

I do, however, like his phrase “supernaturally good”. I had something like that in mind when I printed something off a laser printer for the first time and saw book-quality Times instead of the usual faded dot-matrix.

By: Bob Monsour

Bob Monsour — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:11:17 +0000

The key phrase is “what a horrible place to do fine typography.” What he failed to realize at the time is that you would go on to make “fine typography” achievable on the web (and we’re glad you did).

By: mcloki

mcloki — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:02:17 +0000

Same things my Profs told me when I started using the Mac in 1987. I actually had one prof ask me what I would do if I went to an agency/design studio that didn’t have a photocopier. I told him I’d walk out of the interview since that company wouldn’t be around much longer.

They were interested in preserving the past. They could never understand that I wanted to blaze a path into the future.

By: Robert Lombardi

Robert Lombardi — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:34:11 +0000

Are there any modern books being printed with letterpress? I recently became a fan of R.L. Allan Bibles, especially their Oxford Reference editions because they use the old printing methods.

Check out this KJV set in Brevier Clarendon. Yep, they even call it Brevier, the name for the type size. They have a Longprimer too. I have both of them and can attest to the amazing look of the type on page. It has slight imperfections here and there where the ink didn’t completely fill out the letter, but it gives it a very organic, antiquated charm that seems to only add to the experience of reading it. http://bit.ly/bvKB1a

Here’s a direct link to, R.L. Allan, the people in Scotland, using “the Queen’s” binders in London to put these together. There bindings are simply the best among Bibles. http://www.bibles-direct.co.uk/