Category: Communication Design

For the final part of the experiment the posters were hanged in (semi-)public space. Next to posters promoting various events, the advertisement-free letterpress prints aimed at raising awareness for the topic and reflecting the viewers perception.

Additionally, putting them in the real world was the analog equivalent to a digital posting on social media. However as the poster walls in public space aren’t capable of tracking likes, the only measure for public perception was if the posters disappeared. Though again, only the disappearance of the posters can’t tell specifically the viewers opinion, my hope was that people would take the posters to hang them in there homes.

At least I could observe that most of the posters were gone after a while – either they went to trash or they found a new home on another wall.

After the printrun and final cut, I documented the print edition with a repro camera to find out about the fluctuation of the printing process.

The animated clip below shows that besides minimal changes of the position (also possible because of not 100% accurate positioning for repro photography), the print result of each poster varies slightly.

Differences in color application, but also minor flaws like particles on the printing rollers or inked blind material (in German printing jargon refered to as “Spieß”) that touches the paper in the print run, show a range of stuff that may happen during analog print production.

Of course, for high quality printing jobs print operators are aware of these mistakes and know how to avoid them.

Still, for the experiment, the flaws add to the topic. On the one hand it shows what parameters have to be taken account, while on the other side minor mistakes can be seen as coincidental effects, adding an individual and unique note to each of the posters. Besides these little imperfections underline the characteristics of analog products.

After I had set the letters and printed a variety of prints together with the lino cut on the Asbern proof press, everything was ready for the print edition of about 100 460x660mm posters on the Heidelberg Zylinder at Druckzeug.

The Original Heidelberger Zylinder (OHZ) was produced between 1935 and 1979 and could print sheets of paper, depending on the machine mode, up to 104 x 72! Heidelberg Cylinders are fully mechanical (automatic) printing machines that improved the technical principles of earlier mechanical cylinder presses (which again were the results of technical improvement of manual cylinder presses).

In general the press is driven by a set of gears, which run the “paper run” (Papierlauf), a system of various picker arms transporting the paper, an inking unit, the moving fundament with the attached print forms and of course the central cylinder. Though later models were able to print two colours in one run, with the most common OHZ-S printers it’s only possible to print one colour on one side of the paper per printing run, though still it is possible to combine letterset with other printing forms in the same run.

How each unit of the machine work together in a synchronous way is as fascinating as it is ingenious: on the one side of the machine an aspirator is taking one sheet of the paper stack, which slightly moves up step by step. From the aspirator the first picker arm transports the sheet to the next picker on the cylinder. At the same time, on the other side of the machine there’s an inking unit that distributes a certain amount of colour over a set of metal and rubber rolls. On this side the printing block is set on a fundament that is running like a sleigh in and out the machine. By passing the inking unit the block takes the right amount of colour for the print, which happens while the sleigh is running beneath the rotating cylinder. After one rotation the cylinder forwards the printed sheet of paper to another set of pickers that eventually release the print below the unprinted paper stack.

The adjustments that are necessary to properly operate the OHZ are in general the run of the paper (adjusting the replenishment of paper), setting the right position of the printing image by adjusting printing block and paper (again the “Anlage” needs to be fine tuned to guarantee the same position on each print), preparing the printing block on the fundament, strengthening the “Aufzug” (a sheet of paper that’s tightened to the metal cylinder) on the cylinder to adjust pressure, as well as the adjustment of the inking unit.

As I already had the proof prints, I didn’t have to adjust the height of letters and lino cut and being instructed by a skilled and experienced printer who learned the processes of letterpress before it became an extinct job, we decided to make use of the adjustable zones of the inking unit to print a black and red gradient. Again within the inking unit you’re able to adjust the amount of colour you need for specific areas of your print. Too little colour for bigger areas will result in little saturation, while too much colour, e.g. for small types, will result in blurry edges. As the ink is manually put in to the inking unit you can decide on the position of your gradient.

For my printing experiment we also adjusted the position of the gradient, turning more into black towards the last few copies. Therefore the next part of my print experiment aims at investigating the appearance of the gradient, but also at looking for various inaccuracies that may come with using analog materials and printing techniques – stay tuned for part six, repro photography of print edition.

Sources:
https://digital.deutsches-museum.de/item/78462/
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zylinderpresse

Ich habe mich in den letzen beiden Semestern mit folgenden Fragen beschäftigt:

Wie können Bildinhalte erfasst werden?
Was ist Bildkompetenz und welche Ebenen der Bildkompetenz gibt es?
Welche Grundlagen der Bildkommunikation gibt es und welche Vorteile bieten die Verwendung von Bild oder Text?
Was ist Visuelle Kompetenz und „Visual Literacy“?
Was ist eigentlich ein Bild?
Was ist die Multimodalität medialer Botschaften?
Welche psychologische Theorien des Bildverstehens gibt es?
Wie wird aus der Sicht der Gestalt- und Wahrnehmungspsychologie ein Bild betrachtet?
Welche Bedeutung hat die Informationstheorie für die Bildgestaltung?
Welche Rolle spielt die Emotion bei der Bildbetrachtung?

Nach der theoretischen Bearbeitung dieser Themen schnappte ich mir den Fotoapparat und versuchte Bilder mit eindeutigen Botschaften zu schaffen.

Hier sind nun meine Versuche:
Leise / Laut

Vertraut / Fremd

Ruhig (Statisch) / Bewegt (Dynamisch)

Positiv / Negativ

Einfach / Komplex

Bilder:
Sonja Zechner

In den letzten beiden Beiträgen wurden zur Beurteilung von Bildern die Informationstheorie und die Gestalttheorie vorgestellt. Dieser Beitrag zeigt nun den Zugang mittels Emotionsthese. 

Ein Faktor der die Beurteilung von Bildern stark beeinflusst und in den beiden bereits vorgestellten Theorien nicht berücksichtigt wird, ist der emotionale Gehalt von Bildern. Dieser Wert ist zwar noch schwer messbar, aber nicht minder wichtig. In diese Kategorie der Bildbeurteilung fallen Bilder, die weder wegen ihrer hervorragenden Bildgestaltung noch wegen ihres Informationsgehaltes eine Ausstrahlung auf den Bildbetrachter ausüben, sondern ausschließlich das Gefühl des Betrachters ansprechen. Wie intensiv ein Gefühl beim Betrachten eines Bildes entsteht hängt von der Sensibilität des Betrachters ab. 

Im folgenden Bild wird der Verlauf der Betrachtung und Wahrnehmung eines Bildes dargestellt. Ausgehend von den drei Kategorien Informationstheorie, Gestalttheorie und Emotionsthese der Bildbeurteilung.

Keine einzelne Disziplin kann im Alleingang das komplexe Verhältnis von Bildern und Emotionen untersuchen. Kappas und Müller schlagen in ihrer Publikation „Bild und Emotion — ein neues Forschungsfeld“ (Kappas, Müller 2006) einen interdisziplinären Ansatz vor, der Emotionswissenschaft, Bildwissenschaft und Kommunikationswissenschaft verbindet. Für psychologische, bildwissenschaftliche und kommunikationswissenschaftliche Fragestellungen werden als gemeinsamer Ansatzpunkt die visuellen ‚Bedeutungsstrukturen‘ thematisiert. Zwischen den beiden anderen Disziplinen bildet die Kommunikationswissenschaft eine verbindende Brücke.
Nachzulesen in: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227336636_Bild_und_Emotion_-_ein_neues_Forschungsfeld

Quelle:
Weber 1990 Ernst A.Weber: Sehen, Gestalten und Fotografieren. Basen; Boston; Berlin: Birkhäuser, 1990
Kappas, Müller 2006 Kappas, Arvid & Müller, Marion. (2006). Bild und Emotion — ein neues Forschungsfeld. Publizistik. 51. 3-23. 10.1007/s11616-006-0002-x.In: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227336636_Bild_und_Emotion_-_ein_neues_Forschungsfeld, (zuletzt aufgerufen am 26.6.21)

Bilder:
Weber 1990, Seite 30, 31

Together with the linocut I placed and fixed the sets of lead letters on an Asbern Proof Press from 1959. Presses like these have originally been used to make a first proof print to see if adjustments to your set and additional printing blocks were needed.

Although this manually driven press provides it’s own inking unit, I decided to colour the letters and linocut by hand, using offset printing colours and a silicon covered hand roller. By this I was able to put on more colour on the area of the linocut and only very little colour on the comparably small letters–for printing it’s always important to ink bigger areas properly, as they physically do not provide as much pressure as small forms pressing the colour deeper into the structure of your paper or printing fabric.

More features of the Asbern proof press are the adjustable cylinder, with which you can adjust the height of the cylinder that runs over the printing image. This function helps again to increase or decrease pressure and thus optimizing your print result without the need to strengthen your whole set with paper or cardboard from beneath. In addition the so called “Anlage” is a feature that’s part of almost any printing as well as book binding machine (and can also be found in the extended field of crafts and production). From historic ones to high tech offset machines, this technical feature enables you to fine-tune the position of your print not by moving the printing set, but adjusting the position of the paper in order to have the print in the same position on every sheet. This feature is extremely important if you have to print more colours in separate print runs next to each other, but also if you want to print on the back of your sheet on the right position.

As mentioned in the previous post, the first proof of your letter set, reveals the correct reading direction of your text and letterings, including spacing. Besides, the proof will also show if the letters still have sharp edges or are rather worn out. Especially big wooden letters easily take on wear and due to minimal irregularities in height they may not take colouring evenly, resulting in a rather vintage look.

The inexact height of the letters (from various fonts), but also printing blocks and the combination of both often makes adjustment necessary. By simply putting thin pieces of paper like wrapping paper beneath forms that do not take colour and thus won’t appear in the print, it’s possible to raise the height of the single letters or areas of printing forms. Adjusting the height will not only make previously uninked areas visible, but will also increase pressure and thus create a better printing image. Here it’s interesting to mention that putting a single strip of adhesive tape beneath a letter can make a difference of a not printing, a printing or even an embossed letter in your print.

A simple rule for letterpress printing is that little pressure and little colouring will result in a rather “cloudy” appearance, while more pressure and more colour will give your image a more saturated look. Too much pressure may exceed the possibility of embossing, which may result in cracks of the paper. Also too much colour (in combination with high pressure) will result in blurry edges.

As soon as you’re happy with the result of your print proof, you’re ready for the actual print run.

For small editions you can go on with the proof press. If you ink your letter sets and printing blocks by hand you can make use of possibilities like varicoloured areas or adding different analog effects on purpose to your print.

However, as this again is a quite time consuming work, for higher editions, of more or less constant colouring and quality it’s the time to move on to a fully automated press. Get to know the Original Heidelberger Zylinder in my upcoming post: part five–print edition on OHZ.