COMM 362: Design for Print

PowerPoint lecture bullet points

• Graphic design is a way of learning to understand and manipulate objects in a visual medium.
• The challenge in trying to teach this: most of us think we already know it all.
• In fact, we’ve been swimming in a sea of images all our lives.
• In fact, the estimated number of images we see on TV by the time we are 18 is three trillion: 3,000,000,000,000.
• Susan Sontag, philosopher and visual critic, observed how strangely influential the visual representations in our world seem to be.
  The camera can give us good images without the need to learn how to draw.
• People were driven to make images thousands of years ago.
• Language developed from pictures.
• Phoenicians first divided pictures and words.
• Fixing the image dates to 1839, with the Daguerreotype.
  Movies are based on “persistence of vision.”
• We are taught verbal literacy. Not so often are we taught visual literacy.
• Design: a response to editorial objectives.
• Fine art: communicates an artist’s intentions.
• Graphic artists try to translate the editorial goals and objectives of a publication to a mass audience.
• Graphic artists are usually different from illustrators. Illustrators draw freehand art, or illustrations using computer programs. Graphic artists use this art to design publications.
• People with background in mass communication study do have an advantage in the graphic arts field.

History of graphic design

• Gutenberg's Bible revolutionized communications in about 1450, with the invention of moveable type.
• Display advertising grew after the U.S. Civil War. "Patent" medicines advertised extensively.
• Halftones made direct printing of photographs possible, turning continuous tones into dots.
• Posters were developed in the late nineteenth century, in France. Artists began to move into graphic design, designing posters for a mass audience.
• Art Nouveau style influenced graphic design around 1900.
• A crisis of identity drove artists in the beginning of the 1900s to question their work.
• Realism gave way to abstraction, surrealism, non-representational art.
• The Bauhaus Movement worked to strip away ornamentation in all areas of design, from architecture to publications. Its guiding directive: "Form Follows Function."
• Art Deco grew in the 1920s, emphasizing angular forms based on Cubism and an industrial age.
• Today's graphic arts trends emphasizes design techniques make possible through digital technology. Montages in particular are popular.

The eye and the mind: Visual psychology

• People used to think the eye did the seeing, because that was intuitively correct.
• But in the early 20th century, Gestalt psychologists discovered the eye is merely a conduit, a simple lens. The brain makes the image we see.
• The brain corrects defects inherent to the eye, such as the blind spot of the optic nerve connection.
• What we see is not necessarily what is there.
• A black-and-white photograph is literally ink smudges on a page. People who have not learned to read photos see that, psychological research has found.
• We see, then, what we learn to see.
• Our society, our culture, teaches us. In the example of the Moroccan street scene, only someone familiar with Islamic traditions would know what is going on.
• Visual cues, or genre, help us to know what we are seeing.
• Graphic artists use these cues to define publications.
• For example, a designer wouldn't put text on the cover of a broadsheet-sized publication and call it a "magazine." It doesn't fit the accepted genre.
• Gestalt research also determined we see what we're told to see.
• This principle is critically important to mass media design. We include, and carefully write, cutlines to orient people to a picture.
• Given a limited amount of visual information, our brain adds from its own experience in an effort to make sense of an image. For instance, we see a smiley face, even though it's only two dots and a curved line.
• We perceive elements placed close to each other as related, due to the principle of proximity: "The closer an object is to another, the more it will be perceived as one."
• Public relations people try to use proximity to suggest relationships. Politicians often are photographed with the American flag in the background.
• Temporal proximity is used by filmmakers to suggest relationships in time.
• The principle of similarity suggests "similar visual elements appear to be related."
• The similarity may be in size, color, shape.
• Graphic artists use the principle of continuity to help lead our eye through a publication: "The eye will follow a pattern of similar shapes and lines."
• In photography, roads, fences, telephone poles, wires, and other shapes lead the eye.
• Given a limited amount of visual information, the brain sees the least complicated image, the rule of simplicity.
• For example, given two rectangles, we will see them as overlapping, rather than one rectangle and one L-shaped object, because two rectangles are more simple.
• This principle can help graphic designer add a feeling of depth to a design.
• Mild ambiguity adds interest: people seem to be more interested in a design that almost, but not quite, completes the scene. This reflects the principle of closure: Nearly complete familiar images are seen as complete.
• Graphic designers can use part of a familiar image, or can obscure part of one to add interest to a design.
• For example, a magazine will obscure part of its cover nameplate with another design element.
• Non-representational art may present great ambiguity, asking our brain to engage in a dialogue. Some viewers refuse to do that, or are unable to do that.
• We need to be careful to understand how visual psychology also suggests limitations that are not really there. For example, a pattern of nine dots would suggest a square, but it isn't.
• Can you find these principles reflected in covers of famous magazines?

Typography

• Words and pictures were once the same.
• Pictographs, such as Egyptian cuneiform, relied on a writing system using small abstracted pictures.
• The Phoenicians in about 1600-1000 B.C. are credited with inventing the first alphabet based not on how things looked, but how they sounded when pronounced.
• The ancient Greeks borrowed this alphabet, and added vowels.
• Romans borrowed the Greek alphabet, changed eight letters and added two more. This is the basis of the alphabet we still use more than 2000 years later.
• Romans used majuscules, or capital (upper case) letters. They were related to carving in stone.
• Minuscules, or small (lower case) letters developed later, and were related to writing by hand.
• Cursives are letters slanted by the act of writing with a pen.
• Uncials are rounded letters, popular from 300-900 a.d.
• Charlemagne in around 800 tried to re-unify Europe and its writing styles.
• During this time the Abbot of York, England, formed a new idea of combining majuscule and minuscule: Carolingian script.
• After the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire, the Catholic church rose as dominant force in Europe.
• During the Middle Ages, Gothic lettering styles became the preferred Church-inspired letter form.
• Carolingian script, called "humanistic hand," returned with the dawn of movable type, 1450.
• Germany and Scandinavia, however, continued to use Gothic until the early 20th century.
• Invention of moveable type emphasized conformity of letter form, as the type was carved from wood or metal.
• Italic type, a slanted form of roman, was invented around 1500 in the workshop of Aldus Manutius.
• We call slanted sans serif type oblique.
• Type design became more scientific, and based on mathematical proportions, in 1700s France.
• In the 1880s the Merganthaler Linotype machine set type automatically, making mass media newspapers possible.
• Type terminology is based on the machine age.
• Leading is the amount of space between each line Kerning is amount of space between letters in display text.
• We can separate typefaces into broad categories: roman, sans serif, Egyptian or slab serif, script, blacklister and novelty.
• Roman, a serif style, dates from antiquity. It is still most popular today.
• Roman may be divided into old style, transitional and modern, depending on how close its design is to the old-style calligraphy.
• We can remember the difference by the "SLOBB formula": SLanted obliquely (more slant for old style), Brackets (curves on serifs, old style), and Brilliance (meaning difference between thick and thin areas of a letter; greater difference, or brilliance, is a characteristic of modern roman).
• Garamond is a common old-style roman typeface. Bodoni is a common modern roman typeface.
• Sans serif has no serifs. It became popular in the 20th century.
• Helvetica is most common sans typeface.
• Egyptian has squared-off serifs. It was popular in the 19th century.
• Clarendon is a common Egyptian face.
• Script resembles handwriting. Used mostly for invitations and ads.
• Blackletter resembles Gothic. Used mostly in ads.
• Decorative or specialty faces may resemble bamboo sticks, American flag, or thousands of other variations. used mostly for ads.
• Dingbats, called glyphs in InDesign, are small typographic flourishes, such as bullets, arrows and pointing hands.
• Most type is designed to be proportional. Monospaced type gives the same amount of space to each letter.
• Type choice is critical to the personality and readability of a publication or website.
• Type choice also reflects historical tastes, the spirit of the times. We recognize publications from other eras by their type design, just as we recommend cars from other eras by their design.
• Legibility (crispness of publication) is not readability.
• All capitals are not considered very readable.
• Very short or long lines are less readable; consider an alphabet and a half maximum link.
• Tinted backgrounds seem to make no difference in readability.
• Never mix typefaces of the same race on the same page.
• Use one family for headlines, one for body text.
• Add variety by using bf, ital, expanded or condensed.
• Avoid other typographic problems--see website discussion.

Grids

• A grid is a series of non-printing lines that help graphic designers organize elements on a page.
• A grid gives a page structure. An sheet of ruled paper is a simple grid.
• Designers need to know page terminology.
• Grids may be one or more columns. A one-column grid is "quiet," used for reports and internal communications.
• Other grids give a designer more flexibility. A 1+1 includes a narrow column on the outside for pictures or other elements.
• The 2 + 1 does the same thing, but includes two wider columns and one narrow.
• The 2 and 3 column grids are most standard for newsletters and magazines.
• Designers have to take care that 2- and 3-column grids don't look gray and text-heavy.
• Tabloid and broadsheet formats relay most often on 5- or 6-column grids.
• Large-format publications emphasize modular design: stories and other elements fit into rectangular box shapes.
• This is also called horizontal makeup.
• Stories with "doglegs," or L-shapes, are jumped or cut to fit the rectangular size.
• "Vertical makeup," with narrow headlines and stories running vertically down the page, was a standard of a century ago. It's uncommon today.
• Some designers set up grids based on mathematical proportions. Elements are placed into multiplies of the type and leading sizes.
• A mixed grid is popular in contemporary design. It combines two grids on a page.
• Margins may be all the same size, or progressive.
• Progressive margins begin with the narrowest on the inside margins of a spread, then get progressively bigger going around the page. The largest is the bottom.
• Gutenberg's Bible of 1450 used progressive margins.

Emphasis

• The most important element on a page should be most prominent.
• Editors normally consider relative importance for news publications. Graphic designers implement their decisions in a visual hierarchy.
• Emphasis in design of news websites is not as obvious.
• Emphasis helps orient a reader to a publication, and helps the reader move through the page and the publication.
• We use emphasis all the time in daily life, tuning out distractions to focus on the most important thing of the moment.
• Photographers reflect emphasis in their search for a focal point, or center of interest.
• Emphasis can be added using bold type, large type, bright colors, texture, surrounding by white space, tilting, or otherwise making an element look different.
• Continuity can help emphasize a strong focal point.
• How does emphasis relate to the Gestalt principles of similarity, proximity, continuity and closure?

Balance and alignment

• Most non-graphic designers choose formal balance, everything centered.
• This works for wedding invitations, certificates or other formal designs.
• But most graphic designers work with asymmetrical, or informal balance.
• This "dynamic" balance creates tension, or movement, and so is more interesting.
• Dynamic balance is more intuitive, so more difficult.
• Nature seldom provides examples of formal, symmetrical balance.
• Photojournalists must sort through the jumble of everyday scenes to find dynamic balance.
• Strong focal points are visually heavy, and need to be balanced.
• Alignment is related to balance; as we change alignment, we also affect balance.
• We try to balance by organizing alignments and white space.
• A grid helps us to align elements in publications. It's not often used for advertisements and flyers, however.
• Group related elements to aid alignments.
• Avoid trapped white space, that is, blocks of white space surrounded by elements. Group white space.
• How are balance and alignment related to these Gestalt principles? Proximity, similarity, continuity and closure.

Contrast

• No contrast is boring, gray, and looks unorganized.
• Type can add contrast: large with small, formal with informal, condensed with expanded, bold with light, etc.
• Contrast can make a design more dramatic.
• Other contrast tips:
• Use bullets or other dingbats (glyphs).
• Use boxes or rules, drop caps or drop shadows.
• In photography contrast is intriguing. Many award-winning photos are based on the drama of contrast.
• Contrasting colors will add contrast, of course.
• If you want text that seems to "vibrate," choose two contrasting colors of a similar value (tone, light to dark).
• Most of the time, however, designers choose similar colors but contrasting values.
• You can check contrast of values in Photoshop's Mode function.
• Background images should be screened at about 10 to 15 percent for readability.

Photo handling

• Mass media photos favor people doing things.
• Editors avoid sunsets, scenery,objects, and people posing for the camera.
• Editors in journalism-style publications also avoid group shots, mug shots, "grip 'n grin," dead animal, cheesecake and beefcake.
• Avoid poor-quality images: out of focus, too dark or light, bald skies, lots of empty space, flash on camera.
• Editors in journalism-style publications require identification of people in photos.
• Legally news publications can use photos of people taken in public places without asking their permission.
• Legally advertisers must have written permission for all photo usages. Verbal permission is not considered legally binding.
• Public relations practitioners may need permission.
• Written permission to use someone's image is called a Model Release.
• Photos downloaded from the internet are considered copyrighted, even if no express statement exists. It is illegal to use these without express permission.
• Royalty-free does not mean free. A one-time fee may be required.
• The internet does offer many free images, but these can be generic and amateurish. Graphic artists often prefer images produced expressly for their publication.
• Almost all photos will need some cropping, although graphic designers should avoid cropping a photo so much that context is lost.
• Emphasize a strong center of interest. Avoid cropping between a joint, and leave a little space above the head, and a little space in the area a subject is looking into.
• It is considered unethical to retouch a photo for journalism use, even cleaning up facial blemishes.
• For advertising, anything is possible, of course.
• What can you do in journalism? Crop, lighten or darken, improve sharpness and color balance.
• Generally graphic artists favor larger photos--2-column minimum for vertical, 3-column for horizontal, if working in larger formats.
• You may "flop" (or "flip") a photo (reverse direction), but be careful! Any text will be backwards.
• Photo layouts should include a dominant or theme-setting photos, a long shot, a medium shot, and a detail photo or close-up.
• Photos should vary in size on the page.

Color theory

• We can talk about color using two kinds of terminology: Color generation systems and color harmony systems.
• Color is simply visible wavelengths from the electromagnetic spectrum.
• Also part of the spectrum is infrared, ultraviolet, radio waves and x-rays.
• Black is not a color. Black nevertheless has strong visual weight in an image or design.
• If you add all the visible wavelengths together, you get white light.
• "White" light actually usually has a slight color cast.
• Higher temperature light is bluer. Lower temperature is redder. This is expressed in color temperature, using the Kelvin scale.
• Sunlight is about 5,500 degrees Kelvin. Electronic flash is about 6,000 degrees K, so slightly blue. Incandescent light is about 3,000 degrees K, so orangeish. Candle light is about 2,400 degrees K, so reddish.
• Florescent light is often missing warm colors.
• We generate colors in two ways, the additive system, and the subtractive system.
• The additive system begins with the absence of color, that is, black, and adds colors to that to reach the color we want.
• It is based on three additive primaries: red, green, and blue (RGB system.
• Most modern computer monitors can transmit "true color," or 24-bit color. This means each "channel" (R, G, or B) contains 8 bits per channel that can transmit color.
• Additive color won't work for printing because we can't begin with black. We must begin with a piece of paper, and that's usually white.
• Printed color, therefore, is based on the subtractive system.
• The subtractive primaries are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK), and begin with white.
• The subtractive process is also called the four-color process, producing color separations, or "seps." Colors used are called the process colors.
• Note that in effect the ink in the subtractive system acts like a filter, beginning with the white paper, all colors. So if you place cyan ink and magenta ink over the paper, what do you get? Cyan=green and blue, so transmits those colors, and absorbs red. Magenta=red and blue, so transmits those colors, and absorbs green. But red has already been absorbed by the cyan, so the only color left to transmit is blue. Result: blue.
• The process color system does not actually "mix" the colors on a page, one atop the next. Instead the colors are deposited overlapping each other, in an pattern at a precise angle.
• Four-color separations and halftones are printed by screening them into dots. The smaller the dots, the finer the resolution. This is expressed in dpi, dots per inch. Generally, we need to save photos as double the ppi of the dpi specified.
• "Dot gain" means that as the ink soaks into low quality paper, it gets bigger, giving the photo a muddy look.
• Magazines often are printed on coated stock (shiny paper) that does not allow ink to soak in. Instead it dries more slowly by oxidation. This keeps fine details sharp, but a printer has to let the publication dry before it can be distributed.
• Paper must be run through a press four times for process color. If the paper is run through the press at a slightly different angle, the colors won't overlap properly. A color ghost may be seen on an edge, and colors will be muddy. This is called "out of registration."
• We said color theory can be related to color generation system or color harmony. Color harmony may be considered by three properties: hue, value and saturation.
• Hue is the name of the color, determined by the wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• Value is the degree of lightness or darkness of a color.
• Saturation, or intensity, is a measure of the color's perceived purity or brightness.
• We can choose color harmony based on complementary colors on a color wheel.
• General guidelines for choosing color: consider simultaneous contrast, warm and cool colors, psychology of color.
• Choosing spot colors: clip art, headlines, subheads, background screens. Limit choice of spot colors to maintain unity.

Large format design

• Most tabloids are 5 columns; most broadsheets are 6 columns.
• A tabloid is simply a broadsheet folded in half and printed horizontally.
• A two-page horizontal is called a spread or double-truck.
• Editors have four basic ways to attract readers to a story: the photo or illustration; the headline; the deck or pull quote; the lead.
• Normally readers will first be attracted to a photo or illustration.
• The photo should be at least two columns vertically, or three columns horizontally.
• Run the story across at least two columns. Place headline at top, photo underneath. Avoid tombstoning headlines.
• As a general rule, one-third of the page should be art: illustrations, photos, graphics, tables.
• Some general rules: Don't change leading to make story fit. Don't place photos all the same size. Make a dominant focal point to the page, usually a large photo. Avoid cramping elements.
• Display advertisements can be placed in one of three standard arrangements: pyramid, well, or modular.
• Advertising placed with deep wells or single columns to one side doom a graphic artist's best efforts.

Flow and unity

• While we can analyze images for particular aspects, people look at them as a whole.
• Considering this idea of a whole, we can analyze our designs by determining how people scan them. This is sometimes called flow.
• Good flow is based on consistency of type and other elements.
• Research shows people tend to scan a page using the Z-pattern, that is, from upper left to lower right.
• The optical center is above the mathematical center.
• Unity is a feeling that the design "hangs together," that elements harmonize and enhance the Gestalt.
• We can consider the Gestalt principles as they relate to unity.
• In graphic design, choice of typeface is basic to unity.
• Consider the three-point layout method. Group pictures, text blocks, subheads or graphics into three.
• Other tips to enhance flow and unity include pulling headlines near their articles and keeping all columns of text below a headline.

Covers and paper

• The cover of a magazine is most important. It has to attract readers quickly.
• Usually on a magazine cover you need to include a logo and/or nameplate, a date, volume number, the price, if sold, and UPC (scan) symbol. Also room for address label, if mailed.
• Two styles of magazine cover: separate cover and self cover.
• Magazine covers are designed to sell magazines. Most contain teasers or blurbs to entice readers into the magazine.
• Keep in mind that, except for the front and back cover, readers always see a spread—that is, two pages at the same time.
• Many designers consider this space using the ATSI guidelines: begin with Art (photo or illustration), then Title (headline), Subhead (deck) and Initial capital letter.
• We tend to take paper and binding for granted. But the "stock," as printers call paper, can enhance your design—or detract from it.
• Egyptian paper (papyrus) was made as early as 3000 B.C. by weaving reedy plant stalks together and pasting with sticky juice, then pounding to thin and smooth.
• Chinese invented real paper in second century A.D.
• From North Africa the technique reached Europe , reaching England in 1494.
• Vellum is a smooth, processed calf skin designed for writing.
• Real paper today is a kind of cellulose. While all plants contain some cellulose, most paper today is based on cotton (rag) or wood (pulp).
• The automated wood pulp process using the Fourdrinier machine as shown below allowed paper makers to turn out 500,000 cheap sheets instead of 5,000 expensive ones.
• Wood-pulp based paper has a disadvantage. It is processed in an acid bath. Some acid remains in the paper. Exposed to air and light, the acid breaks down the fibers until the yellowed paper crumbles.
• To manufacture paper, cotton (rags) or wood pulp is "cooked," that is, ground with chemicals and bleached to make white pulp.
• The paper is dried on a conveyer belt, squeezing and blotting between felt cloth rollers. The side facing the roller is called the "felt side."
• During drying paper can be pressed with a design called a "dandy roll" to produce a watermark.
• Heated rollers can polish a paper surface, called "calendering," note, not the same spelling as the calendar on your wall.
• The shiny paper used for many high-quality magazine covers is called coated stock.
• Most graphic designers rely on four basic kinds of stock:newsprin, book, writing, and cover stock.
• Newsprint is most common. It is cheap.
• Book stock is offered in a huge variety of styles and sizes. It is most common in our classrooms and offices. Standard size is 25 inches by 38 inches.
• Book stock textrue may be wove or laid.
• Laid stock sometimes has deckle edges.
• Writing paper is high-quality stock for stationery or invitations. The highest quality is called bond, and it usually contains cloth or rag content.
• Cover stock is basically thick versions of writing papers.
• Paper is ordered by weight, measured in "caliper" or thickness, based on mils. One mil is one one-thousanth (.001) of an inch.
• "Basis weight" is the weight of one ream, or 500 sheets, cut to industry standard. For example, if industry standard for book is 20 by 26, and 500 sheets of that weighs 80 pounds, you have 80-pound basis weight paper.
• The M-Weight is the weight of 1000 sheets cut to a specific size. So if you read a label such as "Basis 80 text, 25" X 38"--160M," you know 1,000 sheets of that paper, that size, weights 160 pounds. Paper is sold by the pound.
• "Opacity" is the ability of the paper to hold back light.
• A perf is a perforation, such as a tear-off coupon or BRC (Business Reply Card).
• Scores allow a user to fold the material easily, perhaps for mailing.
• Embossing actually raises the surface of the paper. (Debossing lowers the surface.) With heat the embossing can leave an inked textured logo or letter.
• Foil embossing adds colored foil to the embossing, using heat. Blind embossing uses no ink. Foil stamping adds colored foil to a flat surface.
• Die cuts create a decorative pattern or shape, as a cookie cutter.
• Note that paper is produced in long rolls. These are cut by printers to a standard size, say, 25 X 38 for book paper. These large sizes allow the printer to produce a number of pages on one sheet, using both sides of the paper. In fact, the number may be 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 pages.
• The multiple-page sheets are called signatures. So a 32-page signature contains 32 pages, 16 on each side.
• These large pages are then folded, and trimmed to size. Note a graphic artist who wishes to create a signature must place items on the correct pages, and facing the correct direction, so they will line up correctly after folding, This is called imposition.
• Printers fasten pages of a publication in five basic ways: saddle stitching, side stitching, perfect binding, sewed-case binding (soft or hard), and mechanical binding.
• A stitch is printer terminology for a staple. Folding pages in half, and stapling them at the fold and through the publication's spine, is called a saddle stitch.
• Side-stitched publications have staples through the binding through the sides.
• "Perfect" binding is not so perfect, but this was once a trade name for a glued spine binding.
• The sewed-case binding is the traditional "gold standard" of bindings. It works primarily with publications printed in signatures. Signatures are gathered and sewn together at the spine.
• Mechanical bindings require the printer to punch holes in the paper and insert a plastic ("comb") or spiral wire binding.

Printing

• The oldest method of printing, as we learned before, dates to about 1450, with Gutenberg's invention of moveable type.
• The system, called letterpress, remained for 300 years the only way to print.
• Letterpress printing relies on actual rollers applying ink to raised letters.
• After inking, a page is set on the letters and a press applies pressure to tranfer the image.
• Traditionally the letters were stored in a case. It was called a California job case.
• Metal letters of one font (from fount, based on type foundary), are set one by one in a composing stick.
• The type is transferred to a metal frame, called a chase, and clamped in with wedges, called quoins.
• The chase is transferred to a press; the type hopefully won't fall out.
• Letterpress printing still is part of the art print industry. It's used when you want a top-quality look for invitations, broadsides, or book covers.
• The web-based press used a large roll of paper instead of individual sheets. The paper was run through a curved plate on a metal cylinder. The type on the curved cylinder was inked and pressed against the paper.
• Curved lead plates were created using a process of molten lead called stereotyping. Newspapers relied on this process even into the late 1980s.
• The linotype machine printed entire lines of type.
• Offset lithography, today the dominant process for mass media printing, dates from the 19th century. Offset is based in this principle: oil and water do not mix.
• The offset method begins by producing a photograph--now usually a digital facsimile--of a page. The facsimile is transferred to a thin aluminum plate. That plate is attached to the press. The image areas hold the ink; the non-image areas are washed with a water-based fountain solution. Because the greasy ink repels the water, it prints on the paper while the rest stays blank.
• The offset press adds a third cylinder to the process. The plate cylinder transfers, or offsets the image to that second cylinder, called the blanket cylinder. That image, now backwards, is then transferred to the paper, so tah-dah! It's correct again. The third cylinder, the impression cylinder, pushes the paper from below for a better impression.
• Two other types of printing are also used for commercial mass media work, although they are less common than offset: photocopy/laser and ink jet printing (sometimes called digital printing) and intaglio (gravure) printing.
• Laser printing is designed mostly for short runs.
• Ink jet printers spray ink on the page to print. They are cheap to buy, but expensive to maintain, based on high ink cost.
• Intaglio (pronounced "intalyo") printing is used for high quality art, books and magazines. Instead of inking raised letters, the ink is applied to depressions on the plate. It is transferred to the paper from these depressions.
• High-speed printing using this process is called gravure, or if using a web feed, rotogravure. In this process, ink is scraped in a squeegee-like way using a Doctor Blade.