Gutenberg and this day in tech, inspired by Wired
Reading about Gutenberg, movable type, and printing in general always makes me think about just how far we’ve come in the realm of communications and the ability to disseminate information. As many of you know, I’m a letterpress printer, using machines that aren’t much different from the ones Gutenberg himself worked with five hundred, yep, that’s 500! years ago!!!
On the other end of spectrum, though, is the work that I’m lucky enough to do every day in the realm of electronic communications. Read the Wired, This Day In Tech, article, and allow your mind to wander, thinking about, imagining, the world of lead type, and heavy cast iron that was needed to get a message out there. Then think back a bit further to a time of hand scribes, and no dissemination at all except what could be passed word-of-mouth.
It’s kind of hard to imagine especially in a world rapid-fire tweets, Facebook status updates, RSS feeds, and blog posts just like this one, that not too long ago there was no Web, or iPhone, or Blackberry or anything else that permitted such awesome real-time, in the moment, communication. Just sayin’… pretty awesome.
Our struggle now isn’t the media, but finding the attention to dedicate to it all… Exciting stuff.
Corporate, Digital Strategy, Electronic Communications, Email Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Web Content, Web Culture | Matt Borghi
Blackberry, Blog, Blogging, Communications, Content, Facebook, Gutenberg, Hand Scribe, iPhone, Letterpress, Marketing, Media is the message, Movable Type, Printing Press, RSS, Social Media, Tweet, Twitter, Wired
I’m studying the history of printing extensively this semester and will have the privilege of viewing very old manuscripts up close and personal. The Gutenberg Bible is on the list, as is a pre-1500 CE version of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It’s revealing to see the travails medieval and renaissance publishers went through to get books out to the masses…lugging crates of volumes over mountains and whatnot. Of course, they used technology that was cutting edge at the time (and even then, they had struggles of the big guys eating up the Mom&Pop shops).