Category Archives: Education

These are blogs about education and training.

Bookbinding with needle and thread

I am teaching a class in book design and bookbinding this quarter. I have 30 students in the class; they are working on their manuscripts and will soon be working on their book blocks and book cases. This involves printing, … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Bookbinding, Education, Imposition and Pagination, Printing and Printing Processes, Typography | Leave a comment

The ETAOIN SHRDLU Express

I was driving at about 60 mph on Highway 101 south of Salinas, California today, when I saw what appeared to be a Linotype keyboard in my rear-view mirror. Yes, it was a Linotype keyboard! attached to the rest of … Continue reading

Posted in Education, History, Typography | 2 Comments

Cal Poly students win the annual Phoenix Challenge

At a conference in San Antonio, Texas, two weeks ago, the student team from Cal Poly took top honors for their redesign and printing of packaging materials for Cal Poly’s student-made chocolates. These are the redesigned chocolate products produced by … Continue reading

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2012 TAGA Student Chapter award

Reported partly in-flight on my way home from the 2012 Technical Conference of TAGA On Tuesday evening, at the 64th annual conference of the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts, awards were presented to the student chapters of the organization, … Continue reading

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A story of amazing proportion

Back in the Awkward Years (1960-1984) we used to make paste-ups, then photograph them on large process cameras to make large sheets of film from which aluminum printing plates were made. Photographs were handled separately from line art, and the … Continue reading

Posted in Education, History, Photography | Leave a comment

Attention all alumni

While chatting with a fellow last night, I learned that he was “an alumni of Cal Poly.” The problem is that he’s not an alumni. He’s an alumnus. This is a problem word, one used almost universally incorrectly in our … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Language and grammar, People | Leave a comment

Working with the new iOne Display Pro

I’ve been monkeying around with the new iOne Display Pro, a new color instrument from X-Rite that replaces the iOne Display instrument that some of us have been using for years. The iOne Display Pro, and its not-too-distant cousin the … Continue reading

Posted in Color Management, Education, New technology, Photography | 2 Comments

How to read a micrometer

Printers and prepress people often need to know things like the thickness of a sheet of paper, or the thickness of a blanket. We make calculations for packing, for folding, for the spine of a book, and more, using measurements … Continue reading

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Cal Poly dedicates a new Konica-Minolta bizhub C8000 digital press

At a dedication ceremony today in the Graphic Communication Department at Cal Poly, Dr. Harvey Levenson, Martin Jones of Konica-Minolta, and Grant Berkefeld of Ultrex Business Systems of San Luis Obispo, California, celebrated the installation of a new Konica-Minolta digital … Continue reading

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Print is dead! Long live print!

My colleague Ken Macro was on an airplane recently between Minneapolis and Chicago, and found himself sitting next to a man who asked his profession. “I’m a college professor,” Ken told the man; they were at cruising altitude. And, what … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Uncategorized | Leave a comment