Category Archives: Printing and Printing Processes

Various printing processes.

From variable-frequency drives
to hand-bound books

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Brian Lawler

It’s been about a month since I wrote my last blog. It was about variable-frequency-drive high voltage motor controllers and a 1935 book sewing machine. The relevance of that is cloudy, but suffice it to say that I have been … Continue reading →

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Electronic motor control
and my obsession with a 1935 bookbinding machine

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Brian Lawler

This is the second part of my obsession story. To read the first part, please click here. And that’s where my odyssey began. Alternating current induction motors use the frequency of the line power (60 Hz in our case) to … Continue reading →

Posted in Bookbinding, Education, Imposition and Pagination, New technology, Printing and Printing Processes, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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 am the faculty advisor). That machine sews the spines of hard-cover books. … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures, Bookbinding, Education, History, Imposition and Pagination, New technology, Printing and Printing Processes | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Running the five-color
Pearl press postcard

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Brian Lawler

Last year I began the restoration of an 1895 Pearl press, a treadle-powered letterpress that was donated to the Cal Poly Shakespeare Press Museum. That press was a rusty machine when we took delivery of it. I took it to … Continue reading →

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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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Cal Poly’s TAGA students win the Kipphan Cup at TAGA 2019

Posted on April 17, 2019 by Brian Lawler

The Cal Poly TAGA team has won the prestigious Helmut Kipphan Cup at this year’s conference of the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts. The Kipphan Cup is awarded to the university team whose technical journal is judged to be … Continue reading →

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A pretty good argument for using ProPhoto RGB
as your working color space

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Brian Lawler

Photographers discovered 20 years ago that sRGB is a really bad color space for professional photography. So we all changed to Adobe RGB 1998. The reasons for doing so are important: Adobe RGB has a larger overall gamut, and conversion … Continue reading →

Posted in Color Management, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes, Software, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ink-jet dreams and realities

Posted on December 16, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Sorry, dear readers, for my long absence. I returned from Germany to a full schedule of classes that required me to work five days a week (I only worked two days while in Germany), and had to manage a full … Continue reading →

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Repatriation of the Blognosticator

Posted on August 16, 2017 by Brian Lawler

After spending five months in Germany, teaching, learning, and exploring the region, we have returned to the U.S.A. It was a wonderful experience, one that I would repeat anytime if I could. During this time I was an employee of … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures, History, Panoramic Photography, People, Photography, Printing and Printing Processes, Technology, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Photographing the portrait-in-stone

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Brian Lawler

  In April, my students and I visited the Landesamt für Digitalisierung Breitband und Vermessung in Munich (Read that story here). In English, this is the state office of digitization, broadband and surveying. Among the things they do is to … Continue reading →

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