For a significant chunk of my working life I was a graphic designer, or graphic artist, or whatever suited at the time. I worked in a small design studio literally tacked on to the side of a litho printers.

When I started, desktop publishing was still in its earliest stages. My job entailed taking physical artwork and pasting it onto boards. From there it would go to the “darkroom”, where a skilled operative would make a film negative of it, then by secret and arcane methods on to a sheet of aluminium which would be fitted to the big printing machines and made into printed materials. By the time I left, most of the arcane stuff had transferred down the line to the studio. We were pushing vectors and pixels about, outputting paginated film directly ready for the platemaker, and the new technology of creating printing plates directly from the designer’s computer was just beginning.

I wandered off the topic there. I wanted to explain that in my early days, type was “set” electronically on a special machine, and output to a photographic paper in the form of galleys. Then it arrived at my drawing board, where I would cut it up and paste it on the board according to the design. The special machines were made by Merganthaler Linotype. This video is about where that name came from. This video is not about desktop publishing, but about the direct precursor that Thomas Edison claimed was the eighth wonder of the world. This video covers the technology of printing, and touches on type design, both things that have held a fascination for me for years.

I hope you enjoy it.