Today, I watched The Making of the Renaissance Book. I was extremely surprised to see the amount of detail necessary to go into making a book. It was interesting to go through each step of the process because I never really realized how difficult and time consuming it was back then. The process of setting the letters seem the most time consuming to me because he had to go through each size and shape of each individual letter for each sentence. This movie really made me appreciate the technology we have today. I am so lucky to have word to write my papers on because all I have to do is simply choose the size and style I want and it appears on my computer.
This video really helped me understand the process we learned at EPI.
Just after seeing the books that were in the library when we looked at “Renaissance Times” books, I felt bad for the people who had to print those books because it seemed like it took forever to make one. I’m sure they really liked their job, but it’s just not my thing.
This was an interesting point, and really helps to explain the reason for the considerably low number of books produced during the age of the movable type press. Even though this was a great advancement in technology, it is still a far cry from the mass production systems that are in place today. From both the video and our class session at the EPI, it seems as if it was a project to print even one page! With this in mind, we can truly appreciate how far technology has come in the world of printing.