I have tremendous respect for Gutenberg and what he created. Considering that everything that we do involves a need for type and a need for quick access, it is no doubt that he had a serious impact on our world today. I mean what would we do if we could not “quickly” print books, newspapers, magazines and various other forms of print? Information would not travel as fast. Documentation would be a very grueling process. People would still be in the dungeons doing every little detail by hand. We are very fortunate to be able to have access to such ready and available objects that make our lives much less stressful and time consuming. It is very imperative that we understand that without contributions, such as Gutenberg’s we would not be as savvy as we think we are today. His letter press was allowed people to make things identically which was sort of a miracle in that time. I also truly enjoyed how in the movie, that we watched, the man was so astounded at the construction of Gutenberg’s letter press. It even seemed to be sort of a mystery to how he built the letter press. Overall, Gutenberg was unquestionably one of the  most innovative thinkers of that time.

Gutenberg was such an influential person because without his knowledge of printing, so many books may have never published nation wide. He made using a letterpress make the producing of books available much faster and world wide. To go through all of what he did to make printing a lot faster is incredible.

The letterpress project in class was educational because it opens another door of design. Using movable type in an art project or a design for a corporate ID package would make a nice texture as well as visual attraction.

Gutenberg was such an influential person in design history because his invention help create a faster way of printing. the invention was monumental because it significantly cut down the amount of time that is needed in order to copy a book. It also helped books to become more affordable to the common people, without this invention we could be still copying books by hand through rewriting every story that was created. I believe without that invention we wouldn’t be able to purchase any thing that is documented without spending a lot of money it would probably  take months at a time to just to print one novel.

From our class activity I learned that it’s not that easy to simply choose letters  and put them on paper though the press of ink and pressure it to the paper and call it done. Although the process didn’t seem too  difficult I can understand that using the blocks you can make a simple mistake with confusing certain letters with each other due to the fonts that can be chosen can look very similar to each other with small variations to them versus what can be written by hand and would a lot of time to create.

Gutenberg was an influential person in design history, his hard work and determination helped revolutionize the printing world. There was nothing like the printing press during that time. In my opinion his invention was as monumental as the video makes it out to be. Gutenberg’s invention help produce text and books faster helping educate the public.It was the starting point for printing today. He also made copies of the bible.

After doing the printing press project in class I am thankful for where we are today with printing. I enjoyed the project, but I could not imagine having to do that for every letter and for every page of a book, leaflet or poster. There was lot of work put into this one thing that we use in everyday life.

Gutenburg is our hero. If it wasn’t for him, our hands probably would have fallen off by now. I personally think his invention was really monumental as our movie stated because his invention changed to world and made it better when it came to printing. Our culture would suck without the printing press. We would be handwriting everything book a thousands times like the monks that wrote the Bible thousands of years ago. Our hands would have rotten and have fallen off. I think the printing press is amazing. Without it, I don’t know what we would be doing. How our books would have gotten out there. Imagine writing the same book over and over and over again. All those pages and letters. That would be miserable. From our activity, I can imagine what it was like with the press the first time it was invented. All those tiny letters just for one whole page. Wow, just wow. Imagine being in their shoes, trying to find the letters and fitting them all onto one piece of paper. Honestly, I’m glad I got to experience that. I’m thankful for Gutenburg and you should be too. Thank you Gutenburg for inventing the printing press.

I believe that Gutenberg is a huge part of today’s world of graphic design. Because of his invention there are newspapers, books, and magazines, anything that you can put into your hands and read. Because of him we can make multiple copies of the same writing without it ever changing. I also believe the movie perfectly depicted how monumental this invention was. It showed how many other innovators or artist were trying to invent something similar, and how later they came up with an invention that made two copies at one time, not just one. This shows that inventors were thinking of a way to make it faster and more efficient.

I believe the world we know today would be a lot different if he did not create this technology. The first thing that comes to mind his how printing is created and the process of making copies. I cannot even image the setback it would have been if he did not build and image something so innovated as he did. I’m sure another inventor would have come up with a system of making copies but then it could have looked and worked in an entirely different way. It amazes me that someone could thing and create something so monumentally world changing.

Gutenberg was such an influential person in design history for he created a new way to produce books in a mass amount instead of waiting for writing books by hand. His invention was revolutionary and of course it was important!  Just imagine if his press was never invented and we still had to write EVERY book or piece of literature by hand? We would go mad. The amount of patient it took to write the Bible by hand must have been something I can’t imagine, I mean, my hand cramps from just taking notes for three hours in some classes, let alone writing a whole BOOK.

His press was extraordinary and without his invention think how long we would’ve had to wait for some of our favorite book series to get published? I know, I would be not be pleased having to wait so long for The Harry Potter series any longer than I had to or any other series for that matter. With his press- it was the start of new wave of getting books published. It was the building block to having presses that printed two pages at once then so on and so forth.

With the class activity I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had never been in the printing room but I had some experience with printing from back in high school. Seeing all the different letter types with different fonts and sizes was exciting. Art comes in all forms and printing is one of them. After getting over the fact at how small the room was and how crowded it was- I decided to step back and wait for the hive of students to disburse before I went over and went to looking for my letters. I knew I wanted all of the fonts to be the same and that was where I ran into the first problem. Trying to match all the letters up but eventually I did it.

My next process was finding out what to say. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted but I wanted it to be in Gaelic and since I was having a pretty rough day I had choose to say 

Which translates to: “Kiss my ass!”

I also recorded my process but feel the picture is fine. Overall, I was glad I got to experience this. I wouldn’t have minded doing more but alas, time got away from me while waiting but I’m glad to make what I did and will probably make it into a valentine’s day card or décor in my room if I can find a frame.

Where would we be without the letter press? Gutenberg became a huge success when he first came out with his letter press. His design for the press was one of the first of its kind. The press would be so much more efficient it would save on time and money. Books would be made faster, they would be able to make more and all would be the exact same every time.

I also believe that the Gutenberg press was as monumental like the movie indicated. The press was a great thing at the time it made making books faster and identically. When Gutenberg came up with press it changed everything for printing from that point on. Without the Gutenberg press invented I feel the press wouldn’t have been invented until very later. Books would have taken longer to mass produces and books wouldn’t have taken off like they did. People wouldn’t have as many books due to not having access to the mass production.

At the end of class we went down to the print making lab where we layout our own letter press design. We first thought of what we want to do, and found the letters out of many different kinds of styles. Once the letters were picked out Katie helped lay them out, then we added color ink to the surface of the letters. When Katie then rolled over them with a paper on top of the letters. After the paper was roll we had the privilege of cleaning the ink off the letters, which was very messy and time consuming. I can only imagine the time and mess it took to create a page back then when the Gutenberg press was invited.

Watching a movie in class was nice because I enjoyed the lights being out and it was an interesting video. It wasn’t boring, it was informative, and I think I enjoyed it a bit more because I like making prints and to me the video was like a history lesson. I know print making, in all its forms, had to start somewhere and if Gutenburg was the first to create a printing machine of some kind it made me want to watch more on the history of print making. Now I know that the video was supposed to be more about the effect the printing press had on design technology and the production of printed products but I just wanted to be back in screen printing. It all seems very similar to me.

To get back to the movie though, I definitely think the printing press was as monumental as it’s made out to be. It made it unbelievably easier to make reproductions. I can’t think of anything today that would change everything the way the printing press did. It’d have to be some crazy design product or teleportation or space travel(not really, but it’d have to be big).

After the video we did a fun little printing activity. Some people made really elaborate sayings or phrases to print others just kept it simple. I did hear someone trying to put together a quote from The Office but I didn’t stick around to see if it came out. Class was fun and I’m going to have to take screen printing again.