The Color Printer in 1892

John Franklin Earhart (1853-1938) was an author, book designer, printer, painter and teacher who spent five years creating his book "The Color Printer, A Treatise on the Use of Colors in Typographic Printing". Finally published in 1892 by Earhart and Richardson, his book demonstrated practical techniques for mixing and overprinting various ink colors and combinations, embossing, borders, ornaments, metallic inks, tint blocks and book composition. According to Richard Sheaff, "the book required 625 forms and 1,625,000 impressions" despite being a small edition. In the late 19th century, Earhart was considered one of the earliest practitioners and developers of "Artistic Printing", a movement which relied heavily on decoration, novelty and the use of highly ornamental typestyles. This was an era rich in decorative design and ornamentation and the printing arts began to flourish as merchants began to recognize the many advertising opportunities to be made. This was also a fascinating time in the arc of design history, and as job printers competed with skilled lithographers drawing on litho stones and engravers who could print with stunning detail, their work continued to thrive. Earhart's book surely was a cornerpiece in the development of Artistic Printing and is still considered to be one of the great books for letterpress printers. I had the good fortune to thumb through a good copy of this book at the Seattle Antiquarian Book fair last month and was overjoyed to find it there. I was nearly as excited to learn that I could also find the book in it's entirety here.  

     

             

Color Your World

The inclination to hand-color photos has been around as long as photography has certainly. The New Process Photo-Color book, a pocket-size "palette" from the vast FullTable archives, is a self-contained book of pigment used to paint photos. Simply wet your brush and paint away. No skill involved, but guaranteed to make the most lackluster image shine.
     As you can see below, there are various styles and methods of coloring photos. I used to use Marshall's brand oil paints which were widely sold at photo supply stores for years, although watercolors, dyes and colored pencils are also useful. When using oils, it was essential to use fiber-base photo papers which allow for the oil to eventually soak in and dry. Before applying any color, I would coat the surface area to be colored with a clear, oil base solution to aid the color application. It would act as a vehicle and thin the color to provide transparency.  

Le Clowns appear to be colorized with colored pencils, another popular technique. The texture of the photo paper usually is revealed by this method. Image from LovedayLemon's Flickrstream. 

My mother...Really! She has always been a rather free spirit, and when she left home at age 18 to work at Mt. Rainier, she hand-colored this 8x10 self-portrait photo and sent it to her dear mom for Mother's Day. At the age of 83, she legally changed her name to Gladiola Flowers. Even now at age 85, and living in a nursing home, she is still just as colorful a character. The only thing she colors now however, is her purple hair. 

The Laboratory of Satan. This partially hand-tinted image is one half of "a stereoscopic French devil tissue view (diablerie) from the 1870s", as explained by Wolfgang Wiggers on his Flickrstream. "These tissue views are made of three layers. First is the normal albumen photographic paper. Second is a painted tissue behind the photograph. Third is a white protection tissue. If you hold the picture against a light, the colors come through. The glowing eyes of the skulls are pinpricked and labeled with a red translucent material." Is that green absinthe Satan is drinking?
     Below is the same image converted to anaglyph using the freeware stereo image editor, StereoPhoto Maker. If you have any 3D glasses on hand, you can actually view Satan's workshop in 3D.

It's a Pantone World

Hard to beat this old pantone ink chart from UK artist Martin O'Neills' screenprinting days—unless—he were to get the royal queen colour guide.
But then he would always have to wear white gloves whenever handling.

The "Diamond Jubilee Colour Guide" by Pantone. Produced by Leo Burnett London.
::The Queen's hat tip to Design Boom for her colour guide.

Magic Type Redux

Thou shalt never use a typewriter for evil or greedy gain. "Don't destroy the type!"

From the adventures deep inside the comic book by Four Color Process, comes the seeker of truth about Ben-Day dots, and the lost art of the comic book. This is the first episode of the Letterology Summer Reruns, and one post I have been longing to revisit. John Hilgart, who calls himself "Half-Static | Half-Man", prefers to remain the half-man behind the Ben-Day curtain. Even so, he has much to say regarding the art of comic books and the artists who created them between the 1940s and 1970s—back in the days of mechanical separations of four-color process printing on cheap paper which created the "accidental aesthetics which governed the experience of comics for generations". They were a product of economic times and the limits of the printing technology of the day, and were reproduced in massive volumes and sold for no more than a quarter. I'm pleased to share more images below beyond my original post of April 5th 2011, but I highly encourage further dot-art explorations over at 4CP.    

The Wordless Wonder Books of Tauba Auerbach

When viewing the wordless books of Tauba Auerbach, one has to suspend their belief of the traditional narrative story. There are no title pages or signposts for chapter openings or endings. There are no entries or exits. They are books designed for inspection and reflection. When first discovering this colorful book recently, my immediate reaction was "how the hell was this thing fabricated?" I'm sure it was not without challenges. 
      This wordless cube of a book, titled RGB Colorspace Atlas, is an 8x8x8 inch structure which was featured in Auerbach's most recent exhibit at the Bergen Kunsthall in Norway along with many other of her works on color perception. Weighing in at 1670 pages, it was digitally offset printed on paper, with each page a slightly different spectrum of color. The extraordinary binding with airbrushed bookcloth and page edges, was constructed by Daniel Kelm. Auerbach was evidently dissatisfied with the first edition of this book provided from the publisher, so she went back to the drawing board and conceived this impressive edition. I cannot imagine the enormous task required to retain such a uniform spectrum of color across all of these two-dimensional surfaces. Quite a remarkable achievement.

RGB Colorspace Atlas on display last year at the Bergen Kunsthall in Norway. 

Wood, 2011. Digital offset on Mohawk Superfine, 55 pages with hand painted edges. Binding is constructed by Daniel Kelm.

Marble, 2011. Digital offset on Mohawk Superfine, 55 pages with hand painted edges. Binding is constructed by Daniel Kelm.
:: Images via Arrested Motion, and Triangulation.