Fun For Designers

Little known facts

Printing isn’t all business. Read on and impress your friends at your next party using these “little known facts” on the printing industry.

Within 15 years of inventing the printing press (1440), Johannes Gutenberg was bankrupt, but ten years later he was given the title Hofmann (gentleman of the court) by von Nassau.
Only 60 years after Gutenberg invented the press, there were over 1000 printers in Germany, France and Spain combined.
The first time Shakespeare’s 36 plays were published together in one book called The First Folio, it took two years to print the nearly 400-page book. It took so long that they proofread and corrected while the job was still in production.
Letters that are not capitalized are called “lower case” because in early printing days they kept those letters in the lower drawers (or cases) of the moveable-type cabinets.
Our new logo is based on our great-grandfather who started our company. We call the logo “Al” after A.L. Chocklett, Sr.
The last letterpress AL bought for his home-business weighed 2500 pounds. It imprinted on a sheet of paper that weighed approximately 0.01 pounds. The phrase you’re searching for is “over-engineered.”
It is estimated that over 12,000,000 propaganda leaflets were printed and dropped over Germany during the second world war. The propaganda bombs were intended to either reduce morale in the enemy or increase morale in American soldiers.