The art of old school (mid 20th century) printing technology

Lincoln Cushing wrote this cool article on old school (mid-20th century) printing technology: Cranking It Out, Old-School Style: Art of the Gestetner”. Lincoln is a librarian who had a previous career doing printing and graphic design for community groups.

Every society has its pecking order, and printing is no exception. Equipment matters. At the top of the heap are the big presses—the giant Goss web machines that churn out daily newspapers, the high-speed Solna sheetfeds for beautiful color posters, the elegant Heidelberg Windmill letterpresses for art prints. At the bottom are the lowly duplicators—not even called presses—that are the Volkswagen Bugs of the reproduction world. People of a certain age might remember the two offset workhorses of this stratum, the A.B. Dick 360 and the Multilith 1250. But even below these machines, at the very dark recesses of the reproduction food chain, lie the spirit duplicators and mimeographs… [more]