Video: The Heidelberg Prints "The Ideal Book" Broadside

ASMR for Book Lovers

Link: Vimeo: Printing the Art Print

Our “Book Beautiful” Art Print was letterpress printed in partnership with Betts Printing in Tucson, Arizona. Among the equipment in the shop are two Heidelberg Windmill presses. Given the large size of this broadside, we used the larger specimen, made 75 years ago. In 1948, when Germany was just beginning to rebuild from the war – and was still under allied control – this press was manufactured by the 170-year-old company Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft.

Although it is a complex example of industrial engineering – "windmill" arms carry paper through the press... vacuum hoses lift the sheets of paper... a long series of rollers ink the plates – at its heart, it still uses the same principles as those of Gutenberg's first press: a platen presses a piece of paper against an inked plate. The rest just makes things faster and more automated. But even such efficiency is not new; by the Renaissance in Europe, presses could churn out more than 3000 pages per day.

Enjoy the video!

 To see the art print, visit our shop at AmpersandBookStudio.com