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Beautiful Things

Gutenberg and the Book that Changed the World

Few moments in history altered the course of human development like this single one.

What came with this first book was a massive leap in technology, and what’s more, accessible information that brought with it a struggle for knowledge, with the powers-that-be on one side and the common man on the other.

The moment of which I speak is the development of the printing press and movable type, which were brought together by Johannes Gutenberg to develop the 42-line Bible.

The 42-Line Bible is more than a book. It is a symbol for human thought. It is the result of hard, tireless work one undergoes when they understand their work to be important. Or they want to make some serious cash.

Gutenberg’s idea lead to the Renascence, the Scientific Revolution and the separation of Church and state as ideas flowed freely and it wasn’t only the monasteries, universities and wealthy who had access to books and knowledge.

The Book

The Beautiful Book

The Gutenberg Bible is the outcome of an orchestral combination of technologies and ideas that came together to produce the first book to be printed with movable, metal type, around 1455. It essentially introduced the printing press as it was to be known for hundreds of years to follow.

A page from Gutenberg's 42-Line Bible. The red and drop cops were added by hand, but all black text was done with the first true movable type.

A page from Gutenberg’s 42-Line Bible. The red and drop cops were added by hand, but all black text was done with the first true movable type.

Prior to the printing press, books were written by hand from a team of scribes, who were unable to keep a consistent visual tone, were prone to mistakes and were damningly slow. A single book was a process that could take months or years, rather than days or weeks.

This all changed with Gutenberg and his run of 180 Bibles.

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Letterpress Addict

We all have our addictions based in creativity. They keep us up at night. They loot and plunder the gold from our pockets and often don’t make sense to family and friends. We lose our selves for hours at a time in our obsessions, thinking and tinkering, pondering and playing. But the rush of joy and happiness and energy they give us can be the greatest high one could imagine. Hello, my name is Alex Charchar and I’m a letterpress addict.

I’m addicted to paper that has been kissed by metal type. And, sometimes.. sometimes it doesn’t even need to be metal type—it can be photopolymer plates, which is sort of like metal type but… different… it’s a whole Pepsi vs Coke thing… Even wood type will flame my passions. Oh, blissful wood type. However it’s pressed, I love paper that’s been squashed; that’s been impressed upon by inked letters and… ohhh… but… yes, yes, even on the dark, quiet nights, when I just need my fix, I’ll even go as far as to enjoy the sweet, naked bliss of a blind emboss. That’s right! I’m a print designer who loves the look of paper that’s been printed without ink! It just feels so good and I am not afraid to admit it so.

I’m not even sure when my story of addiction began. I don’t remember my first taste. I must have been 16 years of age the first time I got a sniff of it. Just a whisper. It was all I needed.

I was starting to look at graphic art and design and get excited about this new world of beauty. DesignIsKinky served as my gateway—showing me things I’d never seen before—expanding my mind into the little hours of the morning. Once in a while I would hear the voices talking to me. I would shake my head and accept them as background noise – I wasn’t here to see them. Not yet, anyway.

But… but they grew louder. “Who… who are you?” I once said aloud, realising I was talking to a computer screen and feeling a little ashamed. Then… “We are the letterpressed, come play with us.” I awoke the next morning in a pool of cold sweat. I had seen something the night before. And it was special. Beautiful.

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Music and the Artist

Mountains of ink and graphite have been spilled in an effort to explain music and the affect it has on the soul, especially that of the artist. It almost feels redundant to say that it changes and evokes moods, that it inspires and drives. Music can be something special for the creative as it helps motivate and coax out ideas which lay hiding. I spoke to six immensely creative people to find out what music means to them and how it affects their work.

What you’ll find below are three questions that I gave six talented illustrators about music, how it affects their work and who some of their favourite artists are.

Kerry Roper

Kerry Roper’s work reminds us how beautiful the texture, grit and scratches of grunge can be when handled by a master.


What does music mean to you when you’re working?
Music inspires and drives me. I find music a great inspiration to my work – wether it be the lyrics or the general sound itself. I love the way music can evoke emotions – I try to achieve this through my work by using both images and words. Music also can help me get into my work by stopping any distractions from other surrounding sounds. Words are powerful and it’s great to listen to music which encapsulate this power.

What’s your favourite bands/albums to have on when you’re working?
Usually I like to listen to bands such as Interpol, Kings of Leon, The Charlatans and Joy Division. They’re all very moody bands but they have great attitude and lyrics.

Are there any illustrations that you’ve done that were were strongly influenced by the music you were listening to at the time?
It’s sounds like a cliche but two illustrations that have come direct from music are The Beauty Room sleeve and the Devil’s Gun sleeve – I listened to them for inspiration on designing the actual covers for the bands themselves. They are both completely different kinds of music one being more soulful and the other very dance/mix oriented – I think this reflects well in the final cover designs.

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The Windmill Turneth

Having been cleansed through cleaning and learned through study, my kingdom of a press was without an army. A mighty force it appeared, but with no energy coursing through its muscles of steel, it proved to be nothing more than a farce. What is a press without a motor if it is not a kingdom without an army or a man without a heart? The winds have changed and now the sweet fruit that my lettepress bares I have tasted.

After a few weeks breathing in the bitter fumes of turpentine and going through reams of sandpaper, my Heidelberg Windmill letterpress finally got the heart transplant it sorely needed—a new motor was installed. Going from the industrial setting it use to be in to our garage was something I’ve written about before. I mentioned previously that the power requirements weren’t something we were able to provided in our house, so a new motor which we could handle had to be ordered. A birthday passed and I was lucky enough to receive a new motor as a present from my wife’s family.

What follows is a series of photos showing what was done to pull out the old motor and replace it with a shiny new one. A few roadblocks were hit along the way, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

Motor

The new motor, right out of the box awaiting to be installed, heavier than one might think.

This is the old motor, with the large band that wraps around a large wheel. When the wheel spins, everything is in motion and the press is usable. Only electricity to get the motor going is needed, not for the actual press – which means you can run the press without a motor. Not a great idea, as the vacuum wouldn’t work and pressure probably wouldn’t be an easy thing to work with.

The two large discs on either side of the band come off and will be applied to the new motor. A dial on the front of the press controls the speed by moving the motor back and forth, loosening and tightening the belt. You can see that it’s about in the middle here.

Clearly I didn’t get to the discs to give them a clean.

The old motor and discs. The spring on the left of the shaft push the two discs together, to ensure they are always tight on both sides of the belt so the belt doesn’t vibrate back and forth too severely.

The problem with the spring is that it closes the discs closed when a belt isn’t present, making it harder to get to a pair of screws that needed to be undone to slip the disc, spring and shaft off the old motor. Nothing a little prying didn’t fix.

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The Windmill in My Garage

There is something special about the printing method that is letterpress. Brief affairs between the very real metal type and beautiful uncoated stock produce children of tangibility, each slightly different, but always of the same family. A thinly veiled process that gives any piece of design extra warmth and comfort, metal type was the norm from Gutenberg through to only a few decades past. Through a stroke of good luck I’ve managed to get a 1930s designed Heidelberg into my garage.

Friday

Oh, by the way, you’re getting your press tomorrow. This simple email from my wife was by far one of the best I’ve ever received. I now knew for certain that the following day I would have a large track backing into the drive way, to deliver something I’d fallen in love with; a piece of engineered beauty—a Heidelberg Flywheel Platen Press.

Naturally, I was so excited that I shared this little piece of information with the whole studio and spent the rest of the afternoon thinking of what my plans were for my new toy, while working through changes to jobs and anxiously drinking copious amounts of coffee and water, waiting for the day to come to its end.

How it Happened

I didn’t go looking for this press. I wasn’t looking for any type of press really. The 2 tonne machine just fell into my lap. I married into a family of printers. My wife and her family run a printing business—something that made introductions easier. To make a long story short, in the pursuit of expanding their business, they’ve recently bought out another printing business and effectively doubled their list of equipment. In their list of machinery was now two of these presses, when they only need one (mostly for die cutting and numbering), so instead of it taking up space in their shed, we gave it a home in the garage.

The Heidelberg “Windmill” Platen Press

The moniker Windmill comes from the way the paper-gripper rotates when moving paper through the press. Two arms rotate as they pick up a sheet of paper on the left, drop it in the middle to be impressed by the inked type, to be picked up again and dropped off on the right.

Heidelberg built around 250,000 of these machines over a 30-odd year span, ending in the 70s. Going by a serial number on the front of the press, this was was manufactured towards the end of the run, in 1967. Unlike most mechanical things you buy, a Heidelberg press isn’t one you need to worry about. As long as they are kept well oiled and fairly clean they’ll keep on going, making impression after impression.

Saturday

Saturday morning rolls around and I’m reminded that my wife’s father, the truck/crane and the press will be arriving sometime soon. We clean up the garage, have some breakfast, move the car and wait while watching some awful Saturday morning television.

Around 11, things start to happen. We get a phone call to let us know they are on their way. Not long after this, a truck wider than our house shows up and the fun starts. Doug (the truck & crane guy) steps out of his truck and introductions and pleasantries are exchanged. A few moments later, he hops back into his truck and backs it into our driveway, right up to within a couple of meters of our garage.

A few moments later and the press is unchained and floating through the air—I don’t know why, but 2 tonnes of flying metal is a rather intimidating sight. Ten minutes after it initially goes airborne off the back of the truck, it finds its feet back on the ground. Now the tricky bit – getting it into the garage.

press

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For the Love of a Notebook

An illustrated school of ghosts, engraved skin and utopias for the dystopians—the Moleskine has developed quite the following.

Not too long ago I wrote about the Moleskine Notebooks in a general way – going into what they are, where they came from and expressed my overly romantic feelings for the little books—the word lust was used. While writing, I began to realise that the article was starting to get long, far too long for one article from an online source, so I decided to split it into two. This first article was an introduction to the notebooks. This second article is a look at how they can be used and what fantastic things are being done with them.

The Moleskine range has been used for some great things. From being used as the canvas of illustrators sharpening their skills whenever they get a chance, no matter where they are, to people ditching their PDAs for an analogue system with a pocket Moleskine at its centre, to creatives filling a book with whatever came into their minds for exhibitions.

05-wil3.jpg

Ghost School is a blog I started following a couple of months ago; it is the online journal of the work of illustrator Wil Freeborn, detailing the sketches he does in his Moleskine when he’s out and about. It is a good example of how versatile the notebook is for illustrating (and writing) on the go, as the scenes he illustrates are ones he encounters on a daily basis when out and about. His use of delicate colours works well with the yellow stock, with illustrations that are soft, gentle and look at home in a Moleskine. So why is this his book of choice? He was kind enough to answer a few questions.

Alex Charchar: Is there any particular reason you chose to use a Moleskine for your illustrations?

Wil Freeborn: Yes, they sit really flat. I like using both pages at once. I rarely draw on one page at a time. I’ve tried other books but they tend to favour the right side, so you end up drawing in portrait. The paper is also slightly smoother which makes the experience of drawing that much better.

On a more personal angle I started drawing again as I wanted to think visually to hopefully improve my design. The only way I knew I could get better at drawing was trying to draw as much as possible and I try to do small things to incorporate drawing into a routine, such as in the train, my work environment. I’m trying almost to explain to myself what my world looks like in a very matter of fact manner. I think for a time I was starting to forget.

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My Lovely Moleskine (Nice Notebook)

Blessed be the notebooks of Modo & Modo, draped in cloth of oil, born in Tours of France. Standing tall of 14 by wide of 9, split through mark of cloth and strapped by rubber and cotton with corners curved. Thy name is Moleskine.

I can’t lie, I love these books. I adore these books. These books do things to me that no book should do, especially a book whose pages are empty. The allure of these little books is quite enigmatic, there are countless alternatives, most of which are significantly cheaper. Yet the quality of these beautiful books have won the love of many, the world over.

Note: I’m going to be writing in general about the Moleskine range, however, for the most part will be talking of the Basic Ruled (Pocket) version in mind.

If you’ve ever purchased one of the notebooks in the Moleskine range, you’ll most likely be familiar with the history behind them. In the little pocket in the back of most editions, there comes a small folded booklet explaining their history and origin. “…used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin” boasts the marketers at Modo & Modo. It is Chatwins name which holds the most significance, as he is the one whose notebooks are the basis for the current line of Moleskines.

He ordered a hundred books to ensure a healthy supply

He loved the books so, that when the manufacturer of the books he was purchasing closed up shop, he ordered a hundred books to ensure a healthy supply. The death of the owner of the business whom manufactured these books died in 1986 and his family decided to close down the business. Just over a decade later, Modo & Modo trademarked the brand Moleskine and started to produce a notebook, which is basically identical to that owned by Chatwin, as described in his novel The Songlines;

“I pulled from my pocket a black, oil cloth-covered notebook,
Its pages held in place with an elastic band …
… I wrote my name and address on the front page,
offering a reward to the finder”

It is mostly due to marketing that the names of Van Gogh, Picaso and Hemingway appear in the history of the Moleskine. Van Goghs’ notebooks probably come the closest to the current design. His books had a cloth ribbon to keep it shut, as well as what appears to be a small pocket at the back of the book—it’s hard to tell if the cover is as study or of a similiar material as the current line of Moleskine notebooks, but it comes pretty close. Picassos’ book is also more or less the same, but it is Hemingways association that seems to be the loosest. His mention of a notebook small enough to fit into his coats’ inside pocket is all that was needed for it to be proclamined a moleskineeque design. But really, they are all just pocket notebooks with a dark, durable cover.

You notice it because it is unnoticable

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Hidden!Hidden!