Movie ( Snapshot). Then, Elaborate Typeface Printin

¶ … movie ( snapshot). Then, elaborate Typeface printin

The 2009 film Typeface, which was directed by Justine Nagan and produced by Kartemquin Films, is a thoroughly fascinating documentary about the decline of traditional woodblock type and printing. The movie also focuses on the ramifications of that decline, which occurred in the wake of the transition to digital type and modern printing presses. There is a great deal of history in this film, which is centered on the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum located in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Most importantly, the movie highlights some of the intangible benefits of traditional wood type that are not found in the technologies used today. The result is the viewer gets a comprehensive overview of the benefits of the traditional method, and the reasons why it was forsaken for contemporary ones.

Another fairly intriguing aspect about this film is the fact that, despite the patent reduction in usage of wood type, there are still a number of people who are attempting to actually merge the best aspects of wood type with digital and modern printing technologies. A large part of this facet of the movie revolves around the employment of the Hamilton as a meeting space for workshops relating to printing and design. One weekend a month this museum -- which is actually the remnants of a conventional wood type printing establishment -- provides workshops for some of the more serious designers and printers from all around the country (Morris). They gather to learn about the older methods of typecasting and printing and strategize about ways in which they can incorporate them into modern practices.

The movie inevitably invokes comparisons between tradition and modernity, rural heartland America and the sprawling urban environments that have largely replaced it, as well as wood type and digital print. In doing so, it denotes a few key differences between the two which favor, at varying points, aspects of both sides. The contemporary world, with its heavy reliance upon technology for virtually all aspects of life, considers speed one of its core values. It is this aspect of time which has largely eradicated the usage of wood type for today's contemporary needs, although, as the movie indicates, there are some people who still utilize wood type for special occasions such as weddings. However, whereas at one point wood type was used for virtually all publishing (most eminently newspapers) in the 19th century, the type it takes to finish a job is vastly longer than that which computers and modern methods use. From this particular perspective, the film emphasizes that computerized printing is substantially more efficient than wood type; this factor is the primary reason for the decline of the latter.

However, wood type was responsible for creating a specialized industry of artisans who focused on this particular trade. As such, there are certain elements of wood type that simply cannot be duplicated via traditional printing processes. One of those is the aesthetic quality of errors in wood type that at once renders a character or a printing unique. The subsequent passage attests to this fact.

"Much like wood type itself, this film is flawed. But, unlike wood type, not always in a good way…Designer Stacey Stern really hit the nail on the head for me when she talked about the beauty of decaying wood type, how the flaws are the best part (Weissman).

The inherent flaws in wood type and the appreciation for them that this passage suggests are on the key elements of it. It represents a human uniqueness which is difficult to duplicate utilizing computers. As such, this aspect of wood type is one of the more important ones, and a testament to the fact that modernity, convenience, and even speed are not always better.

Additionally, when comparing woodblock techniques vs. digital or computer printing, it is necessary to point out the largely impersonal nature of the latter option. Fonts are generally pre-arraigned and, although they enable graphic designers some degree of manipulation, largely lack the hands-on look and feel of the woodblock technique. With woodblock printing, virtually all aspects of the character and type are adjustable. This fact, and the degree of individuality it bestows, is not only evident in the aberrations that this method produces, but also in the very way it is constructed. The subsequent quotation demonstrates this fact. "In wood and metal type the space is as tangible as the letters. You can touch it and move it around" (Jeffery). This passage underscores the degree of flexibility that wood type presents users, which is difficult to match utilizing computer type.

As previously mentioned, the most widely hailed aspect of digital printing is the expedience in which it is produced. Still, when comparing this sort of printing to that of traditional woodblock technique, it is necessary to point out that the dearth of speed or slowness in the latter method has benefits as well. In the movie:

Dennis Ichiyama's students leave their Macs and work with wood type as a hands-on way to play about with space. He also believes there is a design benefit that comes from being slowed down. He must be right, but the question of speed is interesting (Jeffery).

The most interesting aspect regarding the question of speed is that it is all relative. It is worth mentioning that entire newspapers -- printed daily -- were formally set using wood type, which suggests that perhaps this method is not as slow as it seems by today's standards.