Printing

[jimlongley]

For some reason, I started printing everything except my signature when I go into high school. Maybe because my brother and my father both printed. Drafting class reinforced this, and I never went back to cursive. I am not sure I could use cursive now.

When I was working as an elections clerk, I had a chance to go through the old voting books in our county, dating back to pre-1900. Everything was in beautiful (usually) cursive writing, although it was sometimes a bit difficult to decipher. Then right at WWII , it all changed -- everyone started using squarish printed/block/capital letters. It looked amazingly like my Dad's handwriting -- or more accurately, hand-printing (he was born in 1919 and was a WWII vet). I wondered if there was a change in teaching methods/philosophy about how to teach handwriting in 1920s and 19330s, when my Dad and others of his generation were learning to write.

Want to have some real fun? Go back and look at census records, where the census taker was in a hurry, didn't know how to spell, or didn't know how to spell the enumeree's name, spelled the same name differently on the same page, truncated or expanded the name, or just plain scribbled.

[misterlarry]

I studied ink printing in high school as part of Industrial Arts class. I quite enjoyed it. Actually got used to reading things backwards. Many moons ago.

Also, when handwriting, I print everything other than my signature. Always have since high school.

[WildBill]

For some reason, I started printing everything except my signature when I go into high school. Maybe because my brother and my father both printed. Drafting class reinforced this, and I never went back to cursive. I am not sure I could use cursive now.

When I was working as an elections clerk, I had a chance to go through the old voting books in our county, dating back to pre-1900. Everything was in beautiful (usually) cursive writing, although it was sometimes a bit difficult to decipher. Then right at WWII , it all changed -- everyone started using squarish printed/block/capital letters. It looked amazingly like my Dad's handwriting -- or more accurately, hand-printing (he was born in 1919 and was a WWII vet). I wondered if there was a change in teaching methods/philosophy about how to teach handwriting in 1920s and 19330s, when my Dad and others of his generation were learning to write.

My father, also a WWII vet, was born about the same time as your father. I never remember my dad writing. Of course I wanted to be like my dad so I printed too. As I got older I noticed that my printing style was very similar to his.

My dad worked as a technical writer and editor. He wrote mostly military type technical manuals so probably printing was more clear and concise than cursive. Also the standard editing symbols that he used were easier for the type setter to understand.

I have a couple of theories about why things might have changed during that time period:

It could be that drafting was implemented as a standard course in high school for boys, just as home economics was for girls. Shorthand was also very popular with young women. The drafting course would explain the use of the standard block letters by young men, rather than cursive.

It could be that woman just naturally have better penmanship than men. The men just want to get the information down with as few motions as possible while women also cared about how it looked. My father printed and my grandfather had horrible penmanship. My grandmother and mother both had beautiful penmanship. It may be my faulty memory, but I recall that the girls in elementary school most always got better grades in handwriting than the boys.

The ball point pen was invented in 1938 and became more popular after World War II. By 1957, the ball point became so popular that most people stopped using fountain pens. Writing with a fountain pen requires some skill, dexterity and patience, where the ball point does not.

After WWII, phones got to be more commonplace so people didn't write letters as much. I remember that my grandmother was always writing letters to people. It was good for me because I received letters from her, and not many from other people.
It was also good for me because I knew what to buy her every year for her birthday and Christmas - more stationary.

[aerostat]

Lorem ipsum, my friend. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

[Keith B]

Lorem ipsum, my friend. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

You don't even understand the topic here. This is not 'printing' in the aspect you would know it in Denmark.

[WildBill]

Lorem ipsum, my friend. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

You don't even understand the topic here. This is not 'printing' in the aspect you would know it in Denmark.

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" is a nonsense phrase that printers and publishers use to test layouts. Dummy text, so to speak.
It is derived from Latin words and phrases that have been mixed up.
The theory is that one can evaluate the appearance of a layout without being distracted by the meaning of the words.
Typeface and font designers sometimes use this phrase to see how the font appears on the printed page.

[Julie]

Before I got married 5 years ago, I was a desktop publisher. Love fonts and page layouts. InDesign CS4 had just come out when I quit work. My hubs bought me a subscription last year when Adobe introduced the cloud version. Had the entire suite for a year, but with 2 toddlers stealing all my time, I think I only got to spend a total of about 2 hours the entire year on it. I was really sad the day I told him not to bother renewing for me. I'm screwed if I ever need to go back to work. Skill set is G-O-N-E.

[RogueUSMC]

Adobe, at one time, used blocks of Shakespear as fill text when doing a layout...lol. I don't know if they still do or not. I am still using CS2...

[MotherBear]

My professional background, such as it is, was in print journalism, photography and design. I started working for my hometown paper when I was about 15, so it was doing a little of everything in a pretty small operation. I loved it, and I miss it a little. Wouldn't trade it for what I'm doing now, but it was a lot of fun. I never sold ads or did anything with the actual printing presses, but I think I tried at least a little of everything else.

[WildBill]

Before I got married 5 years ago, I was a desktop publisher. Love fonts and page layouts. InDesign CS4 had just come out when I quit work. My hubs bought me a subscription last year when Adobe introduced the cloud version. Had the entire suite for a year, but with 2 toddlers stealing all my time, I think I only got to spend a total of about 2 hours the entire year on it. I was really sad the day I told him not to bother renewing for me. I'm screwed if I ever need to go back to work. Skill set is G-O-N-E.

Julie - I am glad to see another fontaholic on the forum.

[WildBill]

My professional background, such as it is, was in print journalism, photography and design. I started working for my hometown paper when I was about 15, so it was doing a little of everything in a pretty small operation. I loved it, and I miss it a little. Wouldn't trade it for what I'm doing now, but it was a lot of fun. I never sold ads or did anything with the actual printing presses, but I think I tried at least a little of everything else.

There are a few "boutique" letterpress printers left. I never did it professionally, but I still admire their work.

[jimlongley]

Also a fontophile, back before wysiwyg, when layout, even on computers, was both an art and a science. I could "read" both ASCII and EBCDIC and used to put my clock on the screen saver in ZAPF Dingbats, I could read the time but others thought it was just random.

My grandfather had the most fantastic hand, I assume due to his turn of the century (19th to 20th) education, and I tried to emulate it for a while, but all I ever got was a clumsy rendition. My parents and their allies decided that my inability to express myself in a relatively neat hand was due to rushing, so I was introduced to the "Osmiroid" process which was a fountain pen with a wide nib and writing in a calligraphic style. It slowed me down, but I never developed anything like a neat script, and my printing is pretty rough.

[WildBill]

I have a small box of hard electrotype - I bought it for the tin/antimony for smelting lead; I'll have to take some pics sometime.

It's probably worth more that the lead value.