Vintage Films about Typography, Graphic Design, Printing …

PrintingFilms.com — Preserving the Visual History of the Printed Word

“[…] collection of vintage films that showcase the technologies and processes of printing, journalism, and typography. It was established by Doug Wilson in 2012 after his work as director of Linotype: The Film.”

One of my favorites: Graphic Communications — We Used to Call It Printing — 1969

1 Like

Wow! I started down this road about 15 years after this video was shot. By the time I got into this business, letterpress and hot metal type were on their way out, but most of the other things in the video were still part of the routine processes we did every day.

Process cameras, film stripping, darkrooms, light tables, drum scanners, airbrush retouching, halftone contact screens, ortho film. That’s back when things were fun and I wasn’t sitting on my butt all day doing everything on a computer. :frowning_face:

Same here ~1988. About the fun part: I think I do fine without the exacto knife cuts and cancerous fumes :grimacing:
Back then in Germany we weren’t even told about DTP. When I got back in to graphic design in the late 90s I had to teach myself.

:grin:

I don’t miss those things either. I still have a few scars on my fingers from X-Acto blades and I’m likely missing a few brain cells from the rubber cement thinner and stat camera fixer. What I do miss are the hands-on aspects of the job where I was working with physical things and real tools instead of moving pixels around all day.