I never considered text to be an art form because in the modern world there is a separation between the final product of the book and the creative process. The systemization of printing has been an innovation for the modern world. It has made books cheaper, and easier to access, which is a benefit for society. Printing has also become less the labor of humans and more of computers. I think mass printing has made me consider books not an art form, but a product of manufacturing. The printing workshop this past Wednesday helped me overcome that assumption.
A final print has so many decisions that go into making it just right. The text on the page must be placed on the galley properly, and this means the sorts should not be broken, upside down, or backwards. The sorts also have to tightly and evenly be locked into the galley. Even if everything is placed properly on the galley, the test prints can still show something is wrong, like that the text is off-centered, or not even on the page. Getting to run the printing press myself and go through the process made me appreciate printing as an artwork. Similar to setting up the layout of a painting and executing it, there are so many details that must be considered with printing a page of text. Text is an art form because ever step contributes to the final picture that is to be created on the page. The words themselves are really a meta picture because they also form an image in our heads in addition to their formation on the pages of a book.
