The letter press demo was enlightening on many levels. The letter press allowed for us to realize just how ling it took for pages of newspapers to be run and caused a greater appreciation for how far technology has come. The Letter press took all of us around a solid hour to compose and then align in the press. The time it took for that only made one page and this was a group of some 12 or more people working together. Quite impressive that companies were able to churn out daily and weekly newspapers without a cut to quality and quantity. One of the most fascinating parts of the printing press we had on hand were the rollers. Normally just using black is enough to suffice, but when adding color, some amazing effects began to appear on our papers. The hues would mix like traditional paint and create a burst of color while we printed. A very nice addition. The machine also seemed so simple with the addition of applying paint by hand and the manpower of moving the wheel back and forth. Another important aspect that plagued one of the groups was the quality of the letters when assembled. The letters were chipped and worn down since they are made of a soft lead. Henceforth they weren’t printing when they needed to. Simply because they had been mishandled or overused. The specific design spacing was also incredibly interesting when using the spacers while writing our words backwards. The spacers varied depending on the gaps you wanted in your paper. There was no space left unfilled. It kept it tight so the machine wouldn’t knock loose some type and ruin the print.
