Printing, a Future Unlimited (1958)

forms the very thought we know, and of what we do. People don't stop to think much about printing. It's like a drink of water. Or the gas where you drive into a service station. You buy a newspaper or a magazine and use it. You read a book, think it over, lend it to a friend, or just put it in your bookcase. You fill in a tax, open mail box, and ever so rarely you think about printing. And when you do, what do you think of? Probably a small printing press. [Music] Or type. Or maybe you think of the marvelous monsters that turn out your favorite magazine. Plants employing hundreds of men and women. [Music] Neither of these pictures is exactly true. The printer today is not just a printer. He's a specialist. A man who knows what he's doing. Whether he's a pressman or a typographer, a compositor, a designer, a photoengraver, a binder, a salesman, an executive, a compositor, electrotyper, stereotyper, a technician in silk screen, photo gelatin, or collotype processes, a bookbinder, a foreman. He's a well-paid technician and craftsman. In a way, he's a scientist, exploring new fields, developing better methods. These are the men, the communicators, the printers. Each has his own job. Each must make his own decisions. These are the words written by a great author, possibly, or an advertising man, a poet, or a pamphleteer. This is a story someone wants to tell, and the typographer must make decisions. He knows a certain type and a certain size will take up so much space. He knows the meaning of what is written will get across better in one style of type than another. So, he makes his choices. How to make it easier to read. How to get the message across. [Music] [Applause] The machine is fast and accurate, but it is only as fast and accurate as the man who operates it. The machine costs over $25,000, but it is completely useless without the skilled, sensitive hands of the typesetter on its keyboard. [Applause] There is beauty in type. Metal with ink and paper becomes a message. Machines do wonders, but no machine can set by hand. Men down through the ages have dedicated themselves to type as an art. The unnamed but inventive Chinese, the immortal Gutenberg, Garamond, Estienne, Gill, Goudy. These men knew type and printing as a science and art, and even more important as a way of producing more printing for more people easier and faster. But it's a long way from apprentice to master. This is his first experience with type. If the A is here, the B must be here. No? Oh, then here. No. No. The B is here. Why? Tradition is part of it. But remember, you use more A's than B's, so the A case is nearer the hand and larger. Simple. Still, it's the tradition of centuries of printing that makes a journeyman out of an apprentice. And when that journeyman puts that thin space in, right there, he's a master, a traditional master. But what happens to type when it's been set and corrected? That depends on the printing process to be used, and naturally on the man who's going to do it. It can be photographed and made into lithographic plates, or the type can be locked directly onto the bed of a press as is, or reproduction proofs can be pulled. Engravings can be made of it. But once the type is set, engraved, or made into plates, as soon as the press is made ready, the press begins to roll. Small presses can produce 10,000 business cards an hour. Big ones can turn out up to 20,000 48-page metropolitan in the same amount of time. But again, small or large, the machine is nothing without the man. [Music] Whether you're dealing with an ounce of metal in the form of type or 10,000 lb of complicated machinery, but know your craft, respect it. You treat 5 tons of driven metal like a child. You know your watchful eye You're a pressman, translating the type into reading matter. You're a master printer. What makes a man a master printer? It's know-how, because printing is not just a job, it's a profession that depends more on what you know than who you know. This particular pressman is Milt Leeds, 28. His plant is in Cleveland, Ohio. He took a print shop class at high school about 10 years ago and was snapped up as an apprentice as soon as he graduated. Today, not only is he a craftsman, but he's in the top 1/3 of our country's income groups. The other fellow is the foreman in Milt's plant, Walt Dunlap. He's 29. About 9 years ago, he graduated from the School of Printing Management at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, where he received his degree in printing management. This one is Stu Colton, 26. He took the print shop course in junior high, liked it, and went to a technical high school for 3 years. After he got out of the army, where he worked in a mobile printing plant, by the way, Walt hired him, and 4 years later, here he is. These are the men that make the machines work. And the machines, without these men, [Music] Of course, not everybody in the printing industry runs a machine. Some of the most important jobs are front office. This calm, efficient young man is what is known as an estimator. He has to know uh [Music] how much time is it going to take to set the type, how much time for make ready or making plates, the price of a highlight half tone, should the job run two up on the one color press or four up on the two color, how many hours folding, collating, and binding charges, delivery. This is the man who figures it out. The boss gets it, examines it, and takes the price to the client. Meanwhile, back at the shop, the estimator is figuring another job. Now, we'd like to make a rather personal introduction. This is the man we've been referring to as the boss. He's up from the ranks, started as a pressman, then became a production manager. 3 years ago, he bought a little shop and grew. [Music] And now his troubles are just beginning. [Music] But everybody loves to dream about what the future might be. [Music] And some do the billing with one hand while they're running the press with the other. One thing, however, is certain. These men, the boss, the pressman, the binder, all of them, doing two things that are all too rare. Having fun and making money. What it boils down to is printing is an industry made of real men. Men with their feet on the ground and their heads screwed on straight. Artists, auditors, binders, bookkeepers, cameramen, color correctors, bookbinders, compositors, copywriters, cutters, electrotypers, estimators, folding machine operators, foremen, gatherers, hand and machine typesetters, layout men, letterers, lithographic pressmen, makeup men, monotype casters and keyboard operators, opaquers, photocompositors, photoengravers, plate makers, pressmen, production control men, proofreaders, salesmen, stereotypers, stockmen, stonemen, strippers, stitchers, superintendents, owners. And printing is an industry that is growing. An industry with an ever-expanding future. Even with the tremendous demand for printing and the steady growth of the industry, there are still only a little over 3/4 of a million men in the printing trades today. So, there's plenty left on the ground floor. The pay is good and there's no industry with more security. After all, it doesn't seem quite possible that they're going to stop using books, newspapers, advertising, forms, letters, invitations, tickets, signs. The list would take hours to go through. [Music] That's a big door. There are thousands of years of history behind it and a lifetime of success when you go through it. Good luck. Not that you'll need it. [Music] [Music]