Stereotyping

Invented by : William Ged

Invented in year : 1725

Stereotyping is a type of printing which utilises a metal plate for the actual printing of pages. Stereotype is a plate used in printing letterpress, newspaper and other high-speed press runs. It is also known as a stereoplate or simply a stereo. Stereotypes are made by locking the type columns, illustration plates, and advertising plates of a complete newspaper page in a form and moulding a matrix, or mat, of papier-mâché or similar material to it; the dried mat is used as a mould to cast the stereotype from hot metal. A duplicate printing plate made from type and cuts; a paper matrix, or mat, is forced down over the type and cuts to form a mould, into which molten metal is poured, resulting in a new metal printing surface that exactly duplicates the original. A stereotype plate is much stronger and more durable under the press run than would be the composed page of type. A stereotype is usually mounted as a block. It is a duplicate of a typesetting or engraving. Stereotypes were often mass-produced and sent to many printers and newspapers.

History

William Ged was the Scottish goldsmith who invented stereotyping in 1725, a process in which a whole page of type is cast in a single mould so that a printing plate can be made from it. Until the invention of the stereotype printing type had to be reset if a second printing was to be made. Ged took a plaster mould of the type and then cast the whole page in metal. During that time, one of the printers complained to Ged that he was seriously embarrassed by being forced to send to London for type, there being then no type-founders in Scotland and that much of the English type was imported to undertake the business of letter-founding; Ged was struck with the idea of making plates from the composed pages, believing that it could be successfully done. He borrowed a page of composed type, and made many experiments with a variety of materials. He set up his page with movable type, locked his form and then the page was laid upon gypsum or plaster of Paris, or some other semi-liquid substance, just as it was drying; when it was dried completely he removed the form from the gypsum cast, and using this cast as a matrix, he formed solid plates of lead. From these he printed on the ordinary letter-press. The letters on the edges of the plates stood up rather higher than those in the centre.

Firmin Didot, a French printer and engraver, improved the process. He used the process extensively, revolutionizing the book trade by his cheap editions. Along with Giambattista Bodoni of Italy, Firmin Didot is credited with establishing the use of the "Modern" classification of typefaces. The types that Didot used are characterized by extreme contrast in thick strokes and thin strokes, by the use of hairline serifs and by the vertical stress of the letters. Many fonts today are available based on Firmin Didot's typefaces. These include Linotype Didot and HTF Didot. Firmin Didot also invented the word 'Stereotype'.

Development in the invention of Stereotyping

In 1730, Gabriel Valleyre, a French printer invented a method of casting plates in moulds, which he used for making calendars which were placed at the opening page of church books. The method discovered by Valleyre was the so-called clay process.

In 1748, Alexander Tilloch, reintroduced it by improving upon the method of stereotyping.  The plates he used, were made by forming moulds or matrices from the page of the books or other publications to be stereotyped and such moulds or matrices were filled with metal or with clay or with a mixture of clay and earth. Tilloch explained that his moulds were by preference taken in plaster of Paris; the plates were thin and mounted on wooden blocks.

In 1783, Henry Johnson, a compositor of London, came up with Logography. Logography enabled the art of arranging and composing for printing with entire words, their roots and terminations, instead of single letters. Then in 1784, Franz Ignaz Joseph Hoffmann, a native of Alsace invented Polytyping. It enabled producing any number of plates capable of multiplication, by mechanical means, from engraved plates or otherwise.

In 1803, Charles Mahon, Earl Of Stanhope, improved and supplemented the existing methods to such a degree as to make them practicable for shop work and to insure the universal use of his perfected method. The plates made by the Stanhope plaster of Paris process were of wonderful depth, sharply cut and gave the very best impressions.

In 1829, Claude Genoux, a French printer, was given the patent for the invention of 'Papier mache' (mashed paper) or 'Wet mat' method of stereotyping. Genoux's method of stereotyping was to paste four or five sheets of dampened tissue paper lightly together on a sheet of plate-paper, lay same on the surface of the type, strike the laminated sheet with a heavy brush until the soft papier mache had taken an exact impression of the type. On this "flan" or matrix, as it was then called, a sheet of plate paper was spread and beaten in by another application of the brush. This completed the matrix, which was then dried and hardened. Casts were taken from the mould thus obtained by simply placing it in a flask (flat caster) and pouring stereotype metal upon it by means of a ladle. This invention represented a tremendous advance in the art of stereotyping and up to this present day paper mats have dominated the art

Role of Stereotyping in the improvement of human life

• It was widely used for various printing purposes like printing newspapers, advertisements, business forms, calendars etc.

• Before this process came onto the scene, when a book was published, the pages needed to be made from individual letters.  If a second printing was needed later on, all of the pages needed to be reset from scratch. The above picture shows the individual letters used in letterpress printing formed together to create lines of text. with stereotyping, books that were in demand could have their pages set in a more permanent state which allowed for easier, faster and cheaper reproductions.

• Further developments in the printing revolutionized the book trade through cheap editions.