Category Archives: History

Printing and photographic history

The Smyth Model 12 Manual

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Brian Lawler

Greetings to those who are interested in Smyth book sewing machines! UPDATED November 2, 2025! I had been dawdling on the scanning of the Smyth Model 12 instruction and parts manual. I am sorry. Scanning is pretty easy, but retouching … Continue reading →

Posted in Bookbinding, Gadgets, History, Printing and Printing Processes, Restoring antique printing machines | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Printing high-resolution line art on the S10P

Posted on August 5, 2025 by Brian Lawler

Update: I have been reading about financial troubles at Landa. The company has asked for protection from its creditors in an event similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. With over $500 million in debt, the company hopes to … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Color Management, History, New technology, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes, Scanning, Technology | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Linotype and Intertype catalogs

Posted on July 11, 2024 by Brian Lawler

In the previous post I described how I published these out-of-print booklets. These are links to the PDF versions of those publications. Please feel free to download them. Addendum November 1, 2025: I discovered a wonderful online database of all … Continue reading →

Posted in Gadgets, History, Printing and Printing Processes, Restoring antique printing machines, Technology, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Of molten lead and ChatGPT

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Brian Lawler

At the core of The Blognosticator are posts about the graphic arts, printing processes, solutions to printing processes, and related items. The blog was originally an arm of Graphic Arts Monthly magazine, who hired me in 2000 to write blogs, … Continue reading →

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Gliding into a saw restoration

Posted on February 2, 2023 by Brian Lawler

This is Part 2 of my story about restoring an antique Hammond Glider “TrimOsaw” for the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly. To read the first part, click here. I got to the point of removing the aluminum nameplate from … Continue reading →

Posted in Graphic Arts people, History, Printing and Printing Processes, Restoring antique printing machines, Technology | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Restoring that ol’ saw – a Hammond Glider

Posted on February 1, 2023 by Brian Lawler

Now that the Smyth machine is working, I decided to take on a new project. Last fall I offered to restore a 1960s era Hammond Glider TrimOsaw for the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly. This machine is best described … Continue reading →

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Designing a monogram font

Posted on April 15, 2022 by Brian Lawler

Years ago I made a reproduction-quality proof of a type font in the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly. This font is comprised a sets of three letters that can be assembled into monograms. Monograms were quite popular for business … Continue reading →

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Drawing the Lining Livermore font

Posted on February 26, 2022 by Brian Lawler

Deep in the recesses of the back room of the Shakespeare Press Museum at California Polytechnic State University is a cabinet. It contains about 20 drawers of hand-set metal type. We never use this type because it is difficult to … Continue reading →

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Obsessing on a 1935 bookbinding machine

Posted on February 22, 2020 by Brian Lawler

I get obsessed about my projects. My current obsession is the restoration of a 1935 Smyth book sewing machine in the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly (I was the faculty advisor before I retired). That machine sews the spines … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures, Bookbinding, Education, History, Imposition and Pagination, New technology, Printing and Printing Processes | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Reminiscences of a prepress guy

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Brian Lawler

I am an old prepress guy. I owned one of the first PostScript service bureaus in the U.S. I was there at the beginning. It was painful, but overall it was a great business. We had been traditional typographers, and … Continue reading →

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