11/2/2005: Traditional Korean printer

[Undertoad]

Not much information is available on this gent working on this traditional form of Korean printing. It's interesting to see - and to ponder how the process of getting information around has changed over the years.

Imagine a point in history when it took someone an entire day to set the type for a single page. And those pages are the only way to share facts and information. Imagine how collections of these pages would be rare, and subject to destruction through floods and fires and war.

Consider how much information has been lost simply because it couldn't be communicated effectively, or shared. Think of how the most beautiful stories must have been lost in the sands of time. Imagine how our own destiny is similar.

It took me about 30 minutes total to compose this IotD entry; from saving the image, to processing it for the site, to writing the text you read here. And it likely contains more information than the text this person is carving. But probably not more important information.

If it takes a whole day to set a page, IotD would not be critical enough to warrant printing at all. Printing would have to be reserved for holy texts, government edicts, posters of important information, and/or pornography.

Last thought on this one: what if the dude makes a typo?

[lawman]

That's why Gutenberg's invention was so 'handy'

http://www.gutenberg.de/english/erfindun.htm

what I find amazing that it was only in the 7th century that individual characters were put together for printing multiple copies.

[Emrikol]

Gutenberg was a weener, and he never made any good porn.

There, I said it! Someone had to.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...what if the dude makes a typo?

What, they don't have traditional Korean wood-filler?

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's my understanding that Oriental writing depends heavily on the shape and size of the squiggles and lines that comprise the characters. Hard to believe that carving can convey the nuances.
At least there's no small print to trick you.

[CharlieG]

Originally Posted by lawman

That's why Gutenberg's invention was so 'handy'

http://www.gutenberg.de/english/erfindun.htm

what I find amazing that it was only in the 7th century that individual characters were put together for printing multiple copies.

Actually, the IDEA existed before Gutenberg - what people don't realize is that his big breakthrough was the ability to make each "type element" the exact same LENGTH, so they could be moved around - in the wood page you see above, you plane the wood smooth, carve the text, and when you push it down onto the paper, which is supported by a platen with a small amount of give , all the characters impact with the same pressure

Now, picture what happens if a piece of type is even .005 short - no impact, or a very light impression.

Now, if you figure out how to make all the type the same lenght, the problem goes away - and THAT was what Gutenberg actually invented, and changed the world - a way to MAKE interchangeable type

[Degrees]

What weirds me out is that to print properly, the press has to be a mirror image of the page. The person who wrote the original caligraphy had to do each symbol backwards. Lysdexia here I come....

[axlrosen]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It's my understanding that Oriental writing depends heavily on the shape and size of the squiggles and lines that comprise the characters. Hard to believe that carving can convey the nuances.

For Chinese at least, the beauty of Chinese calligraphy depends heavily on the nuances of the brush strokes. But the readability doesn't, any more than it does for English. For example there are many different chinese fonts such as here

[Karenv]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It's my understanding that Oriental writing depends heavily on the shape and size of the squiggles and lines that comprise the characters. Hard to believe that carving can convey the nuances.
At least there's no small print to trick you.

Carving is his art form, akin to sculpture, and like any written form of art can convey nuances. Certainly better than movable type. In fact we probably have lost more nuance post-Gutenberg (but retained more of the mediochre stories).

And of course he probably thinks of characters in their mirror image. Because that is what he does.

(I wonder if character carvers are less dyslexic than exercise instructors who have to switch left and right all the time. )

[impu1se]

I'm pretty sure that isn't Korean. Just look at the fonts link posted above it's probably Chinese. I think Korean has one of the most versatile rationally designed phonetic alphabets in the world.

[srom]

it probably is chinese, but even after the invention of the korean alphabet scholarly people continued to use chinese because the korean alphabet was so easy to use, it was just TOO easy. strange but true!

i dunno what happens if the guy makes a typo... he probably just gets fired, heh.

koreans invented moveable type centuries before gutenberg did. they just weren't so big on announcing it to every country, i guess. it's probably a really special document he's making, since he's making the entire text just one big block instead of making the text out of lots of little ones.

some people are still into making moveable typefaces. nowadays... they make 'em out of steel... yikes!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hi, srom. Welcome to the Cellar.
Read what CharlieG posted about Gutenberg inventing interchangeable type of uniform depth.

I think that picture was taken at the Frankfurt Book Fair, this year, where South Korea was the "Guest of Honor".

[n3v3r]

Yes, this is definitely Chinese, not sure which dialect though...
Does that mean he is using an old Korean printing method to print Chinese characters?

[russotto]

It's probably Korean. For everyday use, Korean is written using Hangul, a 15th century phonetic alphabet. But Korean can still be written using Chinese characters, and for decorative work like this, would be.

[BigV]

*ignoring all the Korean / Gutenberg talk*

What is this fellow actually making the print block for, I wonder?

and

How did the characters get printed on the wood in the first place? Were the hand lettered? If so, then there was ample room for artistic license in the production of each character. Granted all the characters are made in reverse, but they're either handmade, or, what, stamped onto the wood with a bunch of smaller individual stamps? If so, why not use those stamps in a moveable type fashion?