At 04:04 PM 2/18/2007, John Howell wrote:
>*Based on the old typesetting practice in which individual letters
>were kept in "cases" or wooden boxes with the capitals mounted above,
>as I understand it.
Each case was actually one largish box, subdivided into smaller boxes
for each letter. Lots more info, with pictures, here:
<http://members.aol.com/typecases/index.htm>.
> Made obsolete by Linotype machines.
Depends on your definition of 'obsolete'! I learned the art of
letterpress when I was in college, 20 years ago, on admittedly old
but still supportable presses and with a recent supply of type. Five
years ago I letterpressed my own wedding invitations and reply cards,
setting the type and printing each one myself.
Letterpress certainly isn't a common way to produce printed material
these days, but it's been experiencing something of a renaisaance for
custom or boutique printing of generally small runs. There was an
article about this in the NY Times last December; those of you with
TimesSelect access can find the article here:
<http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60D12FC3D550C738DDDAB0994DE404482>
For what it's worth, most letterpress today probably uses a combined
"job" case rather than separate upper and lower cases. One common
layout is the California job case, here:
<http://members.aol.com/alembicprs/cjbcase.htm>.
Aaron.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
