Woodblock Printing We’re in 6th-century China during the Tang dynasty. One of many inventions to emerge from this great empire was a system of printing using wooden matrices that were engraved, inked and pressed onto a sheet of paper. The scope of this invention was such that, in modern Chinese historiography, printing is considered one […]

Movable Type Printing We’ve arrived at one of the most important stages in the history of printing: the advent of movable type. And once again, this invention came from China. In 1041, the printer Bi Sheng invented movable clay type. However, it had the drawback of breaking easily. In 1298, the inventor Wang Zhen began […]

The Rotary Press Let’s jump forward again, to the year 1843. We’re in the United States and Richard March Hoe has just invented the first rotary press, perfected in 1846 and patented in 1847. Initially, this system was hand-fed with single sheets until, in 1863, William Bullock introduced a press that was fed by a […]

Offset Printing In 1875, Robert Barclay invented the offset press for printing on metal. Then, in 1904, Ira Washington Rubel adapted the technology for paper. This indirect method of printing is based on a very simple chemical phenomenon: the repulsion between oil and water. The printing process is anything but simple though. An offset plate […]

The Linotype Machine In 1885, German inventor Ottmar Mergenthaler developed the linotype, a typesetting machine. The advantage of this system was that it automatically composed lines of type. It worked in much the same way as a typewriter: the operator composed lines of text by pressing keys on a keyboard. Each key would release a […]

The Laser Printer In 1971, the Xerox Corporation developed laser technology. In a laser printer, the content to be printed is generated by electronic processes and printed directly onto the sheet of paper. To be more precise, the laser transfers the image to a photosensitive selenium cylinder (called a “drum”) and from there, using toner, […]

3D Printing We’ve reached the present day. We end our journey through time in the era of the 3D printer. This printing technology was actually developed some years ago, in 1983 to be exact, when Chuck Hull used UV rays to harden varnishes. The engineer baptised his invention “stereolithography”: a method that allows solid objects […]