Brief Graphic Design tools: Gutenberg’s Type Molds to Apple’s PC and GUI

Brief Graphic Design tools: Gutenberg’s Type Molds to Apple’s PC and GUI

The chapters we reviewed this week were interesting and as I read each one I thought about how Johann Gutenberg’s revolutionary print process is similar to the magnitude of change delivered by the PC  - personal computer – and in an even faster revolution the smartphone, a blend of the PC and the telephone and radio.

First an emerging literate class and continued educational systems, such as universities, increased the demand for books, as with the increased demand, wealthy nobles and town leaders funded the development of printers and illustrators. In the beginning of the fifteen century clergy and the Church had primary control of the book making process via educated scribes and illustrators producing books, were one book took a few month and was extremely expensive. The end of the fifteen century saw the beginning of a new European educated class due to broader production of books throughout Europe as many German and Italian printers traveled across Europe.

The development of the people’s computer by Apple was significant, but the GUI that came from it’s design was most important aspect. The Graphical User Interface or GUI has made computing a visual process for the layman or non-geek user. Prior to Apple, computers were dumb terminals linked to a central computer. The general populace’s ability to compute at home or work and communicate via publishing with type sets and images led to further start-ups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. The other tool brought to market by Apple that was able to use the Apple PC was the image printer, able to reproduce the varied fonts provided within Apple’s GUI and system.

I think the Apple GUI is similar to the moveable type mold in its importance to the development of communication and literary and educational development of the populace.

When Johann Gutenberg completed his development of the type mold, the moveable typography and the refinement of letter forms changed dramatically. The breakdown of woodblock letters from a block of letters to individual letters that could be arranged into words or sentences and paragraphs via type molds led to improved print production. The letters on the block improved by metallurgical process of punch stamping letters from an engraved steel rod and into a soft metal like cooper or brass. These stamped letters were designed to be legible and not like the calligraphy with scrolling letters used in manually produced books. Type molds allowed the design of printed forms on paper to be uniform, clean and improved efficiency and production speed of printers.