DESKTOP PUBLISHING

ACJE 2105

LEC 1: BACKGROUND

- What is “desktop publishing”?

o Desktop publishing is the use of computers to produce high-
quality documents containing text and graphics formatted for publication.
o Desktop publishing is the use of computer applications, digital graphics, and
multimedia formatting to create digital documents and presentations, as well as
virtual pages for physical printing.
o Desktop publishing is used to create printed material such as book covers,
brochures, and fliers. Desktop publishing was pioneered by Paul
Brainerd in 1985 when he released the software Aldus Pagemaker for
the Macintosh computer.

THE EVOLUTION OF DESKTOP PUBLISHING

o Printing techniques/methods
o There are a variety of printing techniques that designers can use to solve
problems and create visual materials. Some are older than others, some are not
as easily available as they used to be and others are much more expensive and
often out of a client’s budget. Regardless of the specifics or availability, all of
these types of printing are still in practice today. It is important to know what
you can do with printed materials in order to select the best possible materials
and processes for the project.
-
o Wood Block
o A form of letterpress, Wood Block printing is one of the oldest techniques for
printing and has a long history or development in both Europe and Asia. It is a
relief process in which an image is carved in reverse into a piece of wood, inked
up and paper is pressed down on top of it to transfer the ink and image. It is one
of the rarest forms of printing in use today, due primarily to time consumption.
However, there are many sets of type still in existence that were created from
woodblocks and are often used in letterpress poster printing. For more
information on wood type visit the Hamilton Wood Type Museum.
o
o Movable Type
o Invented in the 15th century, movable type is the process of setting type by
hand for printing on a letterpress machine. The type can be made of either
wood or metal and letters were cut individually by craftsmen called punch
cutters. This style of printing was the first developed that could rapidly (relatively
speaking) produce multiple copies of lengthy printed materials and books. To
show how significant this invention was, recall that printing using this method
remained the standard printing technique until photo typesetting came about in
the 1950s.
o
o Letterpress
o Letterpress is still alive today, although it exists on a much smaller scale and
usually only in specialty shops. The process often now involves photopolymer
plates that can translate a digital design into a raised plate for use with vintage
presses. It has seen a revival of success in recent years in the fine art, craft, and
design worlds and is often used to create wedding invitations and posters.
However, it remains a very flexible and reliable printing method that can be used
for almost anything.
o
o Phototypesetting
o Phototypesetting has all but been rendered obsolete by the personal computer
and digital typesetting, but for several decades it enjoyed a success as the
standard in typesetting and printing. It is a process in which the type is
generated on a photographic piece of paper. The paper was processed and
ready for paste-up, which is the process of creating a layout. When a layout
is camera ready it was photographed to create a negative that could be used for
offset printing.
o
o Offset
o Offset printing is still the most commonly used method of printing and is often
called offset lithography. Offset printing is created using plates generated for
each color used in the printing process. Some projects may call for 2 colors,
some may use a standard 4 color CMYK process and others can require even
more than that with specialty spot colors, varnishes and a variety of coatings
also available. There are two kinds of offset printing called Sheetfed, in which
individual sheets are fed into the printer, and Web, which prints from large rolls
and can be used to quickly produce very large quantities of printed materials
such as newspapers.
o
o Flexography
o Typically operating with web presses, flexography does not use the standard
plates of offset lithography. Instead it uses rubber plates and water based inks
which dry quicker and allow for faster production times. Faster drying times also
allow for more effective results on materials like plastic which does not absorb
ink like paper does.
o
o Engraving
o Engraving is perhaps the most expensive of all printing techniques as it is also
one of the most time-consuming. It is typically used for fancy gala invitations or
business cards of high-ranking officials in large corporations. The engraved
image is first carved by hand or machine onto a metal plate. The engraved
spaces are filled with ink and the paper pressed on top of it. The result is slightly
raised, crisp images and saturated colors that are nearly impossible to reproduce
with other techniques.
o
o Thermography
o The process of thermography involves laying down ink, adding thermography
powder, then using heat to raise the image slightly off of the page. It may look
and feel a lot like engraving when the final product is produced, but the details
that are present in the engraving process fall short in thermography. While the
details may only be noticed by designers, typographers and people who pay
close attention, they are noticeable. However, thermography is much more cost
effective.
o
o Silkscreen Printing
o Silkscreen printing, or screen printing for short offers a wide range of brightly
colored inks and is often used for printing t-shirts, posters and other
promotional materials. The process involves a design being laid on top of a
screen (originally made of silk although a variety of materials are now used)
which is coated with photo emulsion and exposed to light. The emulsion that is
exposed hardens and the rest can be washed away leaving a stencil of sorts that
ink can be pulled through using a squeegee.
o
o Inkjet
o The common household printing solution, inkjet is a feasible solution for small
print runs and is available to the general public at an affordable cost. The
process involves a printer which communicates digitally with a computer of
some sort and physically sprays the ink onto the paper. It normally is used with 4
to 8 inks in a CMYK process and can produce richly saturated colors on a variety
of materials.
o
o Digital Printing
o Digital printing is a process that uses toner, rather than ink, which sits on top of
the piece of paper instead of being absorbed by it. While the quality has
increased dramatically since its inception, it still cannot match the quality of
offset lithography, especially in small details, typography and color-matching.
The fact that they do not require unique plates means that they can create
individual designs that may have varying details quickly and at a lower cost.
O
O PROS
o The pros of traditional offset printing are clear. It remains the best
quality type of printing available for graphic designers, particularly
when image quality is concerned. Technology has developed so that
the computer-to-plate system delivers superlative accuracy and
quality.
o As previously mentioned, traditional offset printing enables more
choice when it comes to print materials. Many graphic design
projects demand unusual paper types and sizes, specialised inks and
finishes. Special effects like spot varnishes are far better
quality when done through traditional offset printing.
o The combination of the Pantone Matching System and the Pantone
inks makes traditional offset printers the best choice when
complete control is needed and colour accuracy is paramount. The
four-colour process used for digital printing simply cannot compete
with traditional offset printers, so if colour counts, opt for traditional
offset printing.
o If your graphic design project is high volume, traditional offset
printing is not only more cost effective but can be quicker. Much of
the costs and time involved with traditional offset printing relate to
the preparation and press set up. However, if you have a high
volume print job the unit costs are drastically reduced, because once
the set up is complete the extra units are relatively cheap to print.
O CONS
 o What are the cons of traditional offset printing? It is far more
difficult to personalise and customise print jobs during the print
run as the printer set up has to be adjusted. This can be rather time
consuming, particularly when compared to digital printing, which is
perhaps the best option for print jobs requiring a lot of
customisation within a short time frame.
o Traditional printing is also slower and more costly for lower volume
print jobs than digital printing. This is because of the time it takes to
set a traditional printer up for a job, which raises the individual unit
prices for shorter print runs. Digital printers remain the best
choice for quick and low cost short run print jobs.
___________________________________________________________

LECTURE 2

- TYPES AND FONTS:

o A typeface is a named design or style of type, such as this (Calibri).
o A font is a complete collection of one size of a given type style, including
lowercase and CAPITAL LETTERS, small caps (if available), accented
characters (e.g. ǔ, ό), numerals (1, 2, 3), fractions (⅛, ⅝, ⅖), symbols (£, ¥,
≥, ©, &, #), and punctuation (!, ;). [See examples of font collections]

- Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make printed words readable
and appealing. Typography is looked at in the context of communication, enhancing the
ability to share data and information through the printed word. Readability involves type
selection, leading, tracking and kerning.

From Johannes Gutenberg in the 15thC to today’s Huffington Post, the evolution of
desktop publishing has depended on the ability to communicate through the printed
word. Journalism today would have been impossible without the invention of printing
and its subsequent developments.
- History of movable type from AD 1040 in the northern Song Dynasty in China (960-
1127). Woodblock printing was the most common. With time, the wood would soon
wear out and a new set of blocks would be required. The Chinese also used ceramics, but
this also was prone to breaking and was difficult to cast accurately. Koreans were the first
to create movable type metals in 1234. Limitations: Expensive, labour intensive. Up to the
 13th Century, books, especially Bibles, were copied by hand usually in monasteries. It was
slow and quite expensive.

o God has revealed to me the secret that I demand of Him… I have had a large quantity
of lead brought to my house and that is the pen with which I shall write. - JOHANNES
GUTENBERG

- Circa 1450, Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany, developed the mechanical movable
type printing system. The first of its kind in Europe. An important factor in this innovation
was the limited number of characters needed for European languages (Latin, German,
English, French, compared to moving thousands of ceramic or metal tablets for the
Chinese script with its thousands of characters).
- Gutenberg created metal type from an alloy of lead, antimony and tin that are still used
today.
- The fonts thus created were durable and the system was relatively inexpensive. It also
brought about uniform lettering and high quality printing.
- The Gutenberg Bible (in German) established the superiority of printing by movable type
for high quality and inexpensive documents. Gutenberg’s passion for beauty and quality
is evident in the 200 Gutenberg Bibles he produced from his modified winepresses.
Some 47 such Bibles remain today, all collector’s items worth millions and found mostly

in museums. He typically used a font close to the Old English Typeface.

 A page from the Gutenberg Bible. Source: White, J.V., Graphic Design for the Electronic Age:
The Manual for Traditional and Desktop Publishing, Xerox Press, 1988.

- The Protestant Reformation, Europe’s Renaissance, the age of reason, and the growth of
science all came as a result of Gutenberg’s invention. Within a century of Gutenberg’s
invention, printing presses were running throughout Europe and some 40,000 books had
been published. Printing presses were soon running across Europe and books were
produced rapidly in large numbers, a factor in the Renaissance that soon spread globally.
Western civilization, religion, literacy and science as we know it today was hinged on the
ability to compose texts, produce in mass and distribute them to faraway places.
Gutenberg’s invention in time spawned several industries directly and indirectly – books,
newspapers, magazines, the use of manuscripts, libraries, formal education and literacy,
 and many other industries owe their origins to the work of Gutenberg. His impact is still
felt in scholarship (scholars were now able to publish multiple copies of their work);
languages (spelling, grammar and syntax became standardized); the rise of authorship
(previously, scribes reproducing texts often introduced their own errors in translations
and other reproductions); and commercialization of printed works. As a result of this
commercialization, copyright laws were created to prevent unauthorized copying.
- Despite being credited with one of humanity’s greatest inventions, Gutenberg himself
died penniless and in debt. His main backer sued him after he failed to receive the quick
financial returns Gutenberg had promised.

THE ANATOMY OF TYPE

Some technical terms:

Source: White, J.V., Graphic Design for the Electronic Age: The Manual for Traditional and Desktop
Publishing, Xerox Press, 1988, p15.

o Stem
o Ascender
o Descender
o Counter
o Bowl
o X- height
o Cap line
o Mean line or x-line
o Baseline
o Descender line
Fonts and font families differ on the basis of how they manipulate the weight, shape and size of
the elements of type. For example, some font types have more open bowls, longer descenders,
or even higher mean lines. These elements of type are so designed and proportioned to fit
together and complement all the other characters in that font. Such balance and
complementarity ensure that the characters will fit well together when set. The typeface used in
this text (Segoe UI) is a “sans serif” size 11 that takes less text than the same point size of, for
example, Old English typeface. It leads to the question of readability (why some typefaces are
easier or harder to read).

In addition to the typeface itself, a typeface designer can expand the typeface to create a type
“family” in which various weights and styles, such as bold, italic, light etc. Each of the various
designs within the type family complement one another when set. For example, bold type and
italics work well together within one type family. Traditionally, typefaces were designed by hand
and molded in a foundry. Today, typefaces are designed on computer and distributed digitally.
A designer can download professionally designed fonts to a computer after making payment to
a distributor, e.g. Macromedia Fontographer. Many other typefaces are available for free
(preloaded on computers) or on the internet. Free typefaces are often not as precise in detail or
accurate rendering, setting and kerning as professionally designed fonts.

The personality of the printed page is largely dependent on the choice of typeface and its layout
on the page. Three main principles of typography are:

1. Use a typeface that properly communicates your message.

2. The type size should be related to the importance of your message – the more important
the message, the larger the type size. For example, in a poster, the most critical message
takes the most prominent space with the largest type size.
3. Use typefaces consistently.

TYPE CATEGORIES

1. Serif or sans serif

The basic categorization of fonts begins with whether they are serif or sans serif. A serif is
the decorative finishing stroke at the end of each character or letter. It is speculated that
the serifs came from Roman carving of letters on stone. The designers, it is thought,
would carve shallower paths into the stone at the ends of the letters, while carving
deeper primary strokes. Sans serifs (sans, from the French word meaning “without”) have
no finishing strokes. Sans serif fonts are thought to have originated from moveable type
being created in wood, which is more brittle than metal. Letters created from wooden
“slugs” would easily break off if they had the thin finishing strokes, so the designers
simply left them off.
 The Bauhaus School in Germany popularized sans serif fonts in the 1920s in harmony
with their design principle of simplicity. Sans serif fonts are usually used for display and
advertising (or headlines), while serif fonts, which are thought to be more readable, are
generally used for text. Sans serifs are attention grabbers, but can also work well with
smaller amounts of copy, such as catalogs or brochures.

2. Other categories of type:

a. Slab serif (square or rounded bold finishing strokes, e.g. Rockwell)
b. Script or handlettered fonts (based on handwriting, e.g. Edwardian
Script)
c. Glyphic (based on chiseled letters or brush strokes)
d. Handtooled fonts (based on the illusion of carved letters but with outlines, e.g.
CASTELLAR)
e. Display fonts (those used for headlines and large sizes)
f. Monospaced fonts (originally created for typewriters, e.g. Courier New)
g. Dingbats (picture-based fonts, used for symbols). They are not real letters but can
be used as pictograms, e.g. (Wingdings).