Screenprinting is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas.
It is also a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is forced through the mesh onto the printing surface. It is also known as silk screening or serigraphy.
Letterpress printing is form of relief printing of text and image using a press with a “type-high bed” printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image. It was the normal form of printing text in the west from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century until the 19th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century.
First dated woodcut: The “Brussels Virgin,” of 1418.
First dated engravings: The “Berlin Passion,” of 1446.
First dated etching: Urs Graf’s Girl Bathing Her Feet, of 1513.
First dated mezzotint: Ludwig von Siegen’s portrait of the Landgravine Amelia Elizabeth, of 1643.
First lithograph: made by Alois Senefelder, at Munich, in 1797.
First dated printing from movable type: Papal Indul¬gence, of November 12, 1454 (probably printed at Mainz).
First dated book printed from movable type: Psalter, Mainz, Fust & Schoeffer, 1457.
First dated book with woodcut illustrations: Boner’s Edelstein, Bamberg, Pfister, 1461.
First dated book with engraved illustrations: Bettini’s Monte Sancto di Dio, Florence, Laurentii, 1477.
First dated book with woodcuts by a known artist: Breydenbach’s Peregrinations, Mainz, 1486, illustrated by Erhard Reuwich.
First dated book with illustrations printed in color: Sacrobosco’s Sphaera Mundi, Venice, Ratdolt, 1485.
First dated book with engravings by a known artist: Ptolemy’s Cosmographia, Rome, Buckinck, 1478, with plates by Conrad Sweynheim.
First dated book with engraved maps: Ptolemy’s Cosmographia, Rome, Buckinck, 1478, with plates by Conrad Sweynheim.
First book printed in Roman type: probably Durandus’s Rationale, Strassburg, (Rusch, about 1464).
First book printed in Italic type: Virgil, Venice, Aldus, 1501.
First use of Greek type: in Lactantius, Subiaco, Sweynheim & Pannartz, 1465.
First book printed in Greek type: Laskaris’s Greek Grammar, Milan, Paravisinus, 1476.
First music printed from type: in Higden’s Polychronicon, Westminster, DeWorde, 1495.
First book with names of printers: Psalter, Mainz, Fust & Schoeffer, 1457.
First title page: in a Papal Bull, Mainz, Fust & Schoeffer, about 1463.
First dated title page: in Rolewink’s Sermo in festo praesentationis beatae virginis, Cologne, ther Hoernen, 1470.
First title page giving name of author, title, place, printer or publisher, and date: Regiomontanus’s Calendar, Venice, Ratdolt, Loslein & Maler, 1476.
First decorated title page: Regiomontanus’s Calendar, Venice, Ratdolt, Loslein & Mater, 1476.
First signature marks: in Johann Nider’s Expositio Decalogi, Koelhoff, Cologne, 1472.
From: A Guide to An Exhibition of the ARTS OF THE BOOK. Wm. Ivins, Jr., Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1924, New York
Hot metal typesetting (also called mechanical typesetting, hot lead typesetting, hot metal, and hot type) refers to 19th-century and early 20th century technologies for typesetting text in letterpress printing.
Relief is an image created by a printmaking process, such as woodcut, where the areas of the matrix (plate or block) that are to show printed black (typically) are on the original surface; the parts of the matrix that are to be blank (white) having been cut away, or otherwise removed.
Intaglio is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, known as the matrix or plate. Normally, copper or zinc plates are used as a surface, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or mezzotint. Collographs may also be printed as intaglio plates.
Lithography (from Greek λίθος – lithos, ‘stone’ + γράφω – graphο, ‘to write’) is a method for printing using a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface. Invented in 1796 by Bavarian author Alois Senefelder as a low-cost method of publishing theatrical works, lithography can be used to print text or artwork onto paper or another suitable material.
