Frank Romano has spent over 60 years in the printing and publishing industries. Many know him best as the editor of the International Paper Pocket Pal or from the hundreds of articles he has written for publications from North America and Europe to the Middle East to Asia and Australia. Romano lectures extensively, having addressed virtually every club, association, group, and professional organization at one time or another. He is one of the industry's foremost keynote speakers. He continues to teach courses at RIT and other universities and works with students on unique research projects.
Displaying 1-100 of 887 articles
Published September 6, 2024
Frank talks about the typesetting service, a category of the printing industry that is virtually gone. Graphic designers now produce their own type with desktop publishing.
Published August 30, 2024
Frank suggests that you visit the upcoming Printing United Expo in Las Vegas, September 10-12. As usual, he waxes nostalgic about past trade shows.
Published August 23, 2024
Frank bemoans the loss of the independent bookstore. Some lost to the large discounters and others to the online services.
Published August 16, 2024
Frank talks about WhatTheyThink’s coverage of drupa and wishes Eric Vessels a fond farewell.
Published August 9, 2024
Rupert Murdoch says that printed newspapers have 15 years max. Of course, Frank has something to say about this.
Published August 2, 2024
Frank discusses the 1764 Manuel Typographique by Pierre Simon Fournier. It was the first book to document the making of type.
Published July 26, 2024
Frank wants to know what printers are actually printing. Certain categories of print like “Financial” went electronic with the EDGAR and “Catalogs” are mostly online. So what are we printing and where are the growth areas for printing companies?
Published July 19, 2024
Gutenberg had one font. By 1900, there were 480 handset type fonts. Linecasting had 410. Phototypestting had over 1,000. Today, there are over 1 million digital fonts. Frank thinks we need a better classification system for them.
Published July 12, 2024
Frank talks about textbooks and Ukraine. One of the major plants that printed them was destroyed and our government is funding Ukrainian printers to produce them.
Published June 28, 2024
Frank is fascinated by the way movies and TV shows portray counterfeiting. He uses two movies and one TV episode to demonstrate. He is happy that they do not quite get it right.
Published June 21, 2024
Frank uses the book “Dead Tree Media” by Michael Stamm to discuss the grim state of mass media newspaper publishing. Pretty soon, you may have to start a fire by burning your iPhone.
Published June 14, 2024
Frank places drupa 2024 in historical perspective. He tracks and compares attendance and number of exhibitors over the last 24 years. Although the number of exhibitors has remained over 1,600, the number of attendees has dropped from 450,000 to 170,000. It is still a substantial and significant audience.
Published June 7, 2024
Frank inflates our editorial team's egos by talking about how well-documented drupa 2024 was.
Published May 31, 2024
After Benny Landa invented digital color printing in 1993 with the Indigo press, he went on to up the ante with Landa Nanographic Printing. Landa Nanographic ink is a magic elixir and Frank expects more about this unique technology at drupa.
Published May 24, 2024
Frank offers some advice on what to look for at drupa. He suggests you seek out systems that advance automation, integration, and embellishment. He also has some suggestion about food.
Published May 17, 2024
What was the most important development in the printing industry? Frank says: PDF. It became the way we deliver print jobs as well as being a publication and document format.
Published May 10, 2024
Frank had a visit from Dr. Dov Isaacs, a 30-year veteran of Adobe and a frequent participant in international standards groups. He is probably the world expert on PostScript.
Published April 26, 2024
Frank waxes nostalgic about newspapers. He shows the last NY Times issue produced by hot metal and the actual metal page lockup that produced the front page. He also shows the first Times issue done by phototypesetting and the first issue of USA Today.
Published April 19, 2024
Frank has been to every drupa event since 1972. A visit to drupa is an investment in the future of your company. It is a peek into the future of the printing industry. Some introductions will not be ready for prime time, but they will eventually make a difference. It is worth the trip.
Published April 12, 2024
Frank reviews “As If By Chance” by Kevin Reed Donley, a wonderful book about transformative technology from Gutenberg to Steve Jobs. Each short chapter is a gem that describes the people who changed print forever. Many you know; some you do not.
Published April 10, 2024
Frank Romano remembers Don Goldman, who passed away recently.
Published April 5, 2024
Frank goes on a rant about artificial intelligence. He found a program called Moveabletype.ai that can write a book for you. As usual Frank projects this capability into the world of graphic design and even type design. Soon you may be reporting to your printing press.
Published March 29, 2024
Frank begins by talking about the early steam-driven newspaper presses and the giant printing presses at the Los Angeles Times and segues into the decline of printed newspapers. They could be inkjet-printed but delivery to home or business could be the challenge.
Published March 22, 2024
Frank comments on the move of the SATs to electronic form. High school students will now take this test paperless and pencil-less. The SATs have been around since 1926 and are used for college admissions although some colleges no longer require them.
Published March 15, 2024
Frank quotes a NY Times article about Microsoft’s new default font called Aptos, which sends Frank down a rabbit hole involving the beginning of PostScript type and the Arial/Helvetica situation.
Published March 8, 2024
Frank is sitting at a gigantic Hell color scanner from the 1960s. It primarily scanned color slides and chromes. As photography went digital, flatbed scanners became smaller and smaller and were eventually integrated into digital printers.
Published March 1, 2024
Frank discusses one of the enabling technologies of the printing industry: stereotyping. It gave us faster reprints of books and allowed presses to print at high speeds from rolls of paper. Stereotype molds were called flongs. The modern print enabler is PDF.
Published February 23, 2024
Frank has his mind on the Mimeograph. This stencil duplicator was once the primary reproduction device for schools, churches, and other organizations. It was replaced by the copier, the duplicator offset press, and now the printer/scanner. Most of office communication is now electronic.
Published February 16, 2024
Frank talks about ad circulars, also known as free standing inserts (FSIs), once inserted in Sunday newspaper editions but now mailed vis USPS. Increasingly, we go online to find items on sale by supermarkets and other retail stores.
Published February 9, 2024
Frank talks about taking notes via computer rather than handwriting. He describes a book project called “Shift Happens” on the history of the keyboard. Lastly, he identifies several studies that say that taking notes by hand results in better retention of information.
Published February 2, 2024
Frank describes Bible translations for populations with no written language. Through such translations, missionaries helped to save many societies and cultures from extinction. Eskimo, Burmese, Hawaiian, Cherokee, and Navajo are a few. It was printing that made all this possible.
Published January 26, 2024
Frank is having second thoughts about the 2024 Pantone Color of the Year. It is “peach fuzz,” a yellow-orange. Graphic designers must balance the worlds of CMYK and Pantone and it may be time to seek new ideas about how we handle color for print. Come up with your own color for 2024 in the Comments.
Published January 19, 2024
Frank talks about offset lithography in front of an AB Dick 360 offset duplicator. He holds up a 1904 math book, the first book printed by offset litho. From its invention just after 1900, offset took 50 years to become the dominant printing process. It is now being challenged by toner and inkjet printing.
Published January 12, 2024
Frank has a fit about news. He opines that once it was not what was fit to print but what fit in print. Now there is no limit and articles go on forever to provide more places to insert ads, popups, and more.
Published December 15, 2023
Frank talks about typeface jokes. Before there was Comic Sans, there was Souvenir, a typeface that Frank ridiculed for years. All of his Souvenir jokes are in “Types Best Remembered/Types Best Forgotten” (1993) by British typographer Robert Norton. Norton was the typographic advisor to Microsoft.
Published December 8, 2023
Frank describes a 1919 book called “Piggie,” which was the first book typeset with a typewriter. Appleton Publishing was dealing with a typesetters’ strike and used a Hammond typewriter with proportional spacing.
Published December 1, 2023
Frank fires up his Waiback Machine. He looks both back and forward in time to discuss how we predict the future of print. He looks at the evolution of technology and its effect on print volumes.
Published November 17, 2023
Frank harkens back to 1963 and an episode of "The Twilight Zone" that deals with the devil and a Linotype machine. Anything typed on this “infernal machine” comes true. Frank combines nostalgia and trivia in one video.
Published November 10, 2023
Frank has three pieces of good news. 1. From exhibitor feedback, it was a great PRINTING United exhibition in Atlanta. 2. Deborah Corn’s Printing Across America day was a great success. 3. Joanne Gore’s book “Thriving in Chaos” should be required reading for all printing companies.
Published November 3, 2023
Frank recommends “The Dictionary People” by Sarah Ogilvie. It chronicles the literal army of people who contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It took over 30 years to produce the first volume (A-B).
Published October 31, 2023
Frank Romano remembers “American Printer” editor Jill Roth, who passed away suddenly last weekend.
Published October 27, 2023
Frank rants about the small print. He attributes the problem to poor knowledge about typographic x-height. The number used to express point size does not truly describe the actual size of the type being printed.
Published October 20, 2023
The major printing trade show of 2023 just took place in Atlanta. Frank harkens back to a time when there were 14 trade shows every year and has the show directories and badges to prove it. He hopes that the future of the trade show will not be in a museum.
Published October 13, 2023
Frank comments on the announcement that Xerox has withdrawn from drupa by tracing the company’s interesting history with trade shows and product introductions.
Published October 6, 2023
Newspapers are getting smaller. The broadsheet newspaper of the past is now a fraction of its size as it went from a width of 15 inches to under 12 inches today. If this trend continues, your newspaper may soon be a newsletter.
Published September 29, 2023
Frank opines on the future of the library. He sees libraries as access locations for Internet connection because the ultimate library is on the Web. People will still borrow books, but most research will be online.
Published September 22, 2023
Frank interviews type expert Allan Haley, who has spent a lifetime with letters. From Compugraphic to ITC to Monotype Imaging, he has been involved in and reported on typographic developments. As the number of typefaces grows, his job is getting bigger.
Published September 15, 2023
Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, seeing it as a portal to a world of knowledge. His model was an 1856 British book “Enquire Within Upon Everything.” Of course, Frank had to have a copy...or two.
Published September 8, 2023
Frank discusses the most printed book in the world: the Bible. He talks about some of the rare Bibles at the Museum of Printing. There is one leaf from every Bible printed in Colonial America and complete originals of about 50 Bibles. A number of reference books are also available.
Published September 1, 2023
Frank looks into statistics reporting the number of printing establishments. Government data for NAICS 323 does not include Staples and FedEx Office, about 3,000 U.S. sites. Very small printers may self-categorize. We need more accurate industry sizing.
Published August 25, 2023
Frank reviews a show coming to Broadway for a second time called “Gutenberg! The Musical!” In the upcoming 20-week run, two actors pitch a proposed show to Broadway investors. The show ran off-Broadway eight years ago and is being heavily promoted for its encore performance.
Published August 21, 2023
John Warnock the American computer scientist, inventor, and technology businessman best known for co-founding Adobe Systems Inc died on August 20, 2023.
Published August 18, 2023
Frank talks about the free-standing inserts (FSIs), the promotions that were once inserted in newspapers. Because email addresses are not linked to specific ZIP-coded areas, the U.S. Postal System is now the major distributor of FSIs.
Published August 11, 2023
Frank has collected most of the textbooks used to teach printing. For decades, they did not change very much as they taught hand typesetting and letterpress printing. Offset lithography was also relatively standardized—but new printing technologies make it difficult for schools to cover them.
Published August 4, 2023
Frank joins the chorus supporting Print Across America, a day celebrating print. Print Across America is the brainchild of Deborah Corn, who has done more to promote print than any other person. Mark your calendar for October 25, 2023. Get more information at www.printacrossamerica.com and join the party.
Published July 28, 2023
Frank thinks outside the box as he notes that we are all online and thus buying online and this requires shipping which requires boxes. Thus, he opines, packaging in all its forms is a growth market that all printers should consider, especially digital packaging.
Published July 21, 2023
Frank discusses the world of the advertising shopper, also called a “pennysaver.” At one time, most small towns and cities had these newsprint publications filled with ads for local businesses. They competed with the Yellow Pages. Now their content is mostly on social media.
Published July 14, 2023
Frank recommends two new books on how knowledge is communicated, then shows off his collection of encyclopedias—that is, a volume from most encyclopedia sets. Diderot’s Encyclopedie in the 1700s and the Encyclopedia Britannica in the 1800s led the way in putting knowledge at your fingertips.
Published June 30, 2023
Frank congratulates Printing Impressions magazine on 65 years of publication and especially its editor for 40 of those years—Mark Michelson. There are only a handful of printed magazines for the printing industry and we need to support them.
Published June 23, 2023
Frank discusses printing education and the need for college-educated workers for the changing printing industry. He thinks that print scholarship money should be directed at printing education and that the amounts should be increased.
Published June 16, 2023
Frank takes the measure of the printing industry by talking about rulers. At one time, every print worker had a “pica pole” with them to confirm type measure and specs. Aprons had special slots for the many versions of rulers.
Published June 9, 2023
Frank reviews a book called “Dead Tree Media,” which prompts a tale of how the invention of newsprint grew the newspaper industry. It also led to conflict between the Canadian papermakers and the newspaper publishers.
Published June 2, 2023
Frank is on a sugar high from Cracker Jack, or in this case, Cracker Jill. He traces the history of the prizes from metal to plastic to paper to virtual. He bemoans the fact that the prizes are being discontinued and users will be directed to a website.
Published May 26, 2023
Friends sent Frank a copy of the national edition of The New York Times—with a page from the Wall Street Journal inside. This prompts a discussion about consolidated daily newspaper production, stereotype molds, flongs, and PDF files. Only Frank can find a connection.
Published May 19, 2023
Frank reports that Xerox has donated its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to another research organization, ending decades of research into advanced communication technologies. The Graphical User Interface changed the way we worked on computer screens, but other companies, primarily Apple, commercialized it.
Published May 12, 2023
In 1939, they buried a time capsule at the New York World’s Fair. Frank reviews the printed items that went into the capsule—and asks what we might save for the world that will exist in the year 5000, if there is a world in 5000.
Published May 5, 2023
Frank starts by commenting on how typesetters handled the character in Moby Dick who could not sign his name and then segues into the fact that many people cannot sign their name because they were not taught cursive writing.
Published May 3, 2023
Frank makes a rare Wednesday appearance to talk about today's coronation of King Charles III in the context of all the printed materials required for such an event. Today's coronation would have had as large a print requirement as that of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953. Frank walks through the Penrose Annual's documentation of much of it.
Published April 28, 2023
Google cost-cutting has affected every level of the organization. In one report, Frank saw that they were cutting the use of staplers. Frank wonders what they are stapling in the company that exemplifies the concept of a paperless office.
Published April 21, 2023
Frank pivots from the 50th anniversary of the first cellphone call to the effect of smartphones on print communication. The mobile phone is much more than a phone. It is a music and video player, a camera and video recorder, an Internet communicator, and a reading device.
Published April 14, 2023
Frank shows two small books from the 1800s set in 2- or 3-point type. He compares the type in them to the backs and sides of pharmaceutical packaging today. Even with bifocals, they are hard to read. Point size is based on x-height and the numbers are not really descriptive.
Published March 31, 2023
Frank notes that many academic libraries are replacing real books with digital versions. At the same time there is a movement toward book banning in some communities. What will a library look like in the future? Answer: a big building with empty shelves.
Published March 24, 2023
Frank takes us on an historic journey from the Mimeograph to offset duplicators to modern inkjet printing. He tells of Thomas Edison, the Mimeograph, and A. B. Dick. The result of all this was evident at Hunkeler Innovationdays 2023 where inkjet printing dominated.
Published March 17, 2023
Frank reports that the state of Massachusetts is thinking of subsidizing local newspapers, so long as they have at least one local reporter. Whether it goes through or not remains to be seen, but it's a reaction to the current state of the newspaper industry and the importance and value of local news.
Published March 10, 2023
Frank bemoans the reading experience as it is today on electronic devices, compared with printed newspapers. Articles are longer because space is not a constraint and text is interrupted with a barrage of ads.
Published March 3, 2023
The Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Mass., has more than 30 different letterpress models. Six of them are in the museum's Studio, where members can use them to create letterpress projects. MoP Director of Operations Mitchel Ahern took up the challenge of printing on all six in under 4 minutes—a world record.
Published February 24, 2023
Frank talks about the WhatTheyThink Printing Outlook 2023 report. He traces a continuum from a 2000 RIT report projecting the industry from 2000 to 2020 and notes that the industry is now on a trajectory that will see growth for the next 20 years. There is meaningful data and commentary about the industry.
Published February 17, 2023
Print books continue to outsell ebooks. Ebooks are not as impressive on a shelf as print books are. They make you look smarter. No one can see your ebooks. Plus, you can sell or donate or lend your print books.
Published February 10, 2023
Printing presses used to last almost forever—typical of mechanical devices—and used presses always found a market, often overseas. Until recently; there is now such a glut of used equipment that for the first time in history, presses are going to scrap. At the same time, digital devices do not have the same life spans which is why most are leased.
Published February 3, 2023
One benefit of a newspaper is the paper. Frank repeats himself as he bemoans the loss of newspapers and the paper that he gets as a residual benefit. He envisions a world in which we must purchase waste paper for packing, starting fires, and lining bird cages.
Published January 27, 2023
Frank looks into the past of predicting the future. As the Internet began to grow and usurp printed products in 2000, a number of studies were undertaken to understand future impacts. There is no doubt that the Internet has had as profound effect on printing as printing had on human communication.
Published January 20, 2023
Frank rants about the high prices of textbooks. Barnes & Noble built bookstores on or near college campuses in order to get the textbook business. Amazon also entered the market with e-versions as well as print versions. College kids pay the price.
Published January 13, 2023
Belle Da Costa Green was the librarian for J. Pierpoint Morgan, the richest man in the world. He hired her in 1904 to help him build one of the greatest libraries in the world. She became its first director in 1924. She was one of the first women to succeed in a male-dominated world. The book “Personal Librarian” by Heather Terrell and Victoria Christopher Murray, tells the story.
Published January 6, 2023
Frank goes historic. Before Gutenberg printed the Bible he printed indulgences. These were “passports to Heaven” which allowed you to bypass Purgatory if enough money was paid. There were blank spaces for the variable data. The first thing that Gutenberg printed was a form!
Published December 16, 2022
For your holiday reading pleasure, Frank reviews “The Man Who Invented Christmas,” a book about Charles Dickens and the creation of “A Christmas Carol” by Les Standiford.
Published December 9, 2022
Newspapers continue to move from atoms to bits. Frank uncovers more news about newspapers reducing or cutting their print editions in favor of digital editions. Within the next two decades, the printed newspaper will be a vestigial product.
Published December 2, 2022
European consultant Eddy Hagen has researched and produced an excellent report on brand colors: “Project BBCG: a Better Brand Color Guide.” It should be required reading for anyone working with Pantone and specialized color systems. Frank the discusses brand colors in the context of the Pantone system.
Published November 18, 2022
Printed batteries are an important part of printed electronics. Until now, the density of the inks required screen printing. Now, a breakthrough allows three inkjet inks to print a battery. This will provide new opportunities for security printing, direct mail, and packaging that literally sings and dances.
Published November 11, 2022
In this second part of Frank's interview with digital font pioneer Joe Treacy of https://treacyfaces.com, Frank and Joe talk about the current state of typefaces. With more than one million fonts and 20 programs for making digital fonts, there is no end in sight.
Published November 4, 2022
In this first part of two videos, Frank talks with Joe Treacy of TreacyFaces, one of the pioneers in digital fonts. He began making fonts in 1984, before PostScript and “desktop publishing.” His library now includes 500 fonts.
Published October 28, 2022
Frank found a 1975 article about the New York Times’ first entry into cold type (aka photocomposition). They initially used an MGD MetroSet CRT phototypesetter to set the classified section (what used to take three days was cut to 20 minutes). John Werner, then Director of Prepress Operations, was in charge of that transition and is quoted in the article.
Published October 21, 2022
Frank shows his latest acquisition: an 1896 "History of the Horn Book." Horn books date back to the 1500s and were used to teach the alphabet. They were very common during the American Colonial period.
Published October 14, 2022
Frank comments on paper shortages affecting the book industry. As mills close down, book publishers have been hard-pressed (no pun intended) to find paper. They have been applying narrower margins and negative letterspacing to squeeze more lines on a page to cut paper use.
Published October 7, 2022
Frank bemoans the “electronic-ification” of American newspapers and traces the evolution that went from hot-metal type, to flongs, to curved plate cylinders for high-speed rotary presses, to offset printing with negative film and aluminum plates, and to CTP (computer-to-plate). He predicts that circulation drops will move some newspapers to rollfed inkjet and the only thing that might be displayed might be a PDF file.
Published September 30, 2022
Frank is intrigued by a book produced in 1983 by graphic designers Milton Glaser and Jean Michel Folon called "A Conversation." The book is all images; one of the designers began an image and the other finished it. Seemingly printed on one long continuous sheet of paper, it folds out to over 19 feet long. (Frank and his detectives figured out how it was actually produced.) It, perhaps literally, stretches the definition of book.
Published September 23, 2022
Frank tells a tale of three books, each with 50,000 words and none of those words use the letter e. Ernest Wright’s book “Gadsby” in 1939 was the first, followed by Georges Perec’s 1969 “La Disparition” in French and its English translation “The Void” translated by Gilbert Adair. Try writing a sentence without the letter e. It’s not easy. (Obviously the authors’ names didn’t count.)
Published September 16, 2022
Frank discusses mark up for typesetting. Once upon a time, typesetting began with a typewritten manuscript. Typographic format was communicated with marked-up instructions. The typesetting person then followed these instructions to provide the specified font, size, etc. He shows off the special copyfitting rulers and tools that were used to determine copy depth and page count.
Published September 9, 2022
Formed in 1937, the Bookbuilders of Boston was an acclaimed organization that supported the book publishing industry. Sadly, it just closed down. Through its workshops, meetings, and annual events, it educated generations of book professionals. Frank has saved most of the annual catalogs from their annual book awards.
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