Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Type: The Gutenberg Press

Throughout the film, I realized that no matter what I was thinking during the film Gutenburg became an engineer, a merchant, and a intelligent man to invent the press that started mass production. With his invention, manuscripts would slowly disappear and put ease to those who wrote for the manuscripts for a living. The outcome of his invention gave the availability to those that would want to read the Bible, but the downfall to those who couldn't afford the book, they were more likely not to go to church.

The most fascinating thing about Gutenburg was remaking his press now would become a journey to those who would build it. This also brought that supposedly Gutenburg kept close to the water because he was playing with fire since him and his workers made the letter forms. Just watching how they would have made each letter was fascinating in itself by just how the mold that held the form then left an empty space to pour metal in for the outcome of the letter. The process was mind-bottling that I watched that scene a couple of times to figure how it worked.

2 comments:

Kidwell at 63-11 said...

can you say letterpress?

jmeurer said...

it wasn't the letterpress kidwell i was talking about the making of the actual letterforms in metal, like individual letter press type molder