Workshop: Printing Techniques

The workshop explores the main typesetting and printing techniques that have characterized typographic production between the modern and contemporary periods. It will analyze manual composition processes using movable type, the evolution of mechanical typesetting systems, with a focus on Linotype and Monotype, and the main printing presses, from the printing press to industrial rotary presses, examining their function, applications, and technological developments.
A specific section will be dedicated to the history and evolution of typefaces, considered in relation to technological innovations, transformations in publishing, and the construction of the visual identity of printed products.
The workshop will also explore the main image reproduction techniques used in publishing, from woodcut to intaglio techniques, from lithography to photomechanical processes, analyzing their technical characteristics, production methods, and areas of application. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between text and image and the transformations introduced by reproduction technologies between the 19th and 20th centuries.

Through guided tours of printing museums, archives, and specialized laboratories, students will have a firsthand look at tools, machines, typefaces, matrices, and production processes. Activities will include hands-on demonstrations of composition and printing techniques, aimed at understanding the relationship between design, technology, and the finished product.

The workshop's overarching objective is to help bridge the traditional gap between theoretical and practical knowledge, using direct observation of production processes as a tool for a more informed historical and material understanding of printed artifacts. From this perspective, doing is not seen as the acquisition of professional skills, but as a method of knowledge useful for critically understanding and interpreting the objects of typographic culture.

- identify the material characteristics of books, periodicals, posters, catalogs, and other editorial products, relating them to the processes that generated them;

- distinguish the main manual, mechanical, and industrial composition systems, understanding their operating methods, tools, and areas of application;

- recognize the main image reproduction techniques used in publishing and print communications, from woodcuts to photomechanical processes;

- understand the production processes underlying the creation of typographic and illustrated products;

- recognize the main families of typefaces and understand their relationship to specific production and design contexts;

- correctly use specialized vocabulary related to composition, printing, and image reproduction techniques;

- develop a critical ability to interpret printed objects through an understanding of the technologies, processes, and practices that led to their creation.