Discussion

By Vincent Nicholes on Aug 11, 2023

Frank,

My High School had a 3 year vocational printing class and they used the Navy printing manual!
This class set me up for a terrific printing career for over 40 years.

By Patrick Henry on Aug 14, 2023

On my bookshelf – and I'm sure in Frank's library as well – is a wonderful resource called "The Print Production Handbook: A reference book for publishing and print production personnel, designers and editors – complete with a glossary of over 1200 terms." The author is David Bann, and the year of publication is 1985: a year now recognized as marking the start of the digital revolution that transformed printing from what it had been into the form of precision manufacturing we know today. Prophetically, the final section of the concluding chapter bears the subhead "Microcomputers in the production department" and states that "the microcomputer can free production people from most of the routine tasks, leaving them free to use their time more effectively." One has only to look at the current state of digitally enabled offset press automation to realize how accurate Bann's prediction would prove to be.

The rest of "The Print Production Handbook" uses succinct text and vivid color illustrations to detail the analog processes that predominated in print manufacturing at the time. Most of those techniques are gone now, but it's still fascinating to trace the heritage that links cameras, screens, and stripped-up films to the digital methods that define printing today. As Frank says, it's probably no longer possible to produce a printing textbook as succinct and focused as "The Print Production Handbook." But, it continues to have lessons to teach nearly 40 years after Bann wrote it firmly in the belief that "the printed word has an authority which other media can only hope to emulate." His claim stands, and so does the value of his wonderful book.