Who invented print on demand

There are some examples that still exist from before the year in China. It became popular in Europe around the 12th century, and it slowly started gaining steam. Of course, traditional printing methods are much slower and harder work than what we can do today!

Print on demand is actually a relatively new thing. In a edition of Galaxy Science Fiction, printing books on demand was written about as a magical future invention that we could only dream of. But not too much later, it was here. And by not too much later, we mean in the very same decade.

In the s, it got a big boost when Michael Vasilantone, an artist and inventor, came up with a new way of doing screen-printing that was much quicker. The increased speed meant it became easier to create one-of-a-kind designs. By the s, printers started to become available to the public, and print on demand took off. It started out with paper and then evolved into being able to print on fabric too — what we call direct-to-garment DTG printing.

Just 10 years later, we started seeing strong competition from lots of brands trying to get their piece of the DTG printing pie. Today, one of the biggest trends going in the textile market right now is personalisation. That means we can expect to see a lot more one-off prints on T-shirts and other clothing items in the not-so-distant future!

Modern-day screen printing owes a lot to the s, for three different but interconnected reasons. In short, now screen prints could be mass-produced, and a key to this was Michael Vasilantone, the man credited with streamlining the process. Together with his wife Fannie, Vasilantone opened Vastex, a textile screen printing operation in Philadelphia in Among other inventions, Vasilantone went on to patent the dual rotary printing press in , which sent revolutionary shockwaves through the industry: here was a machine that could print on fabric with greater speed and lower margin of error than any other method available.

Developments with inks present the second major factor in the development of the screen printing process. For a start, the inks showed up pale on garments, and they took a long time to dry while being printed.

This made them difficult to work with — they tended to dry onto the printing screen, and freshly printed garments had to be very carefully handled while still wet. This laborious process meant screen printers were few and far between, as the skill had to be learned through apprenticeship. Plastisol ink changed all of this. Both qualities ensure a much easier process, so the advent of plastisol ink opened up the practice of screen printing and meant that practitioners could be more experimental with designs too.

The third major factor is the cultural climate of the s. Though the core method has stayed pretty constant over the years, the process has undergone its share of tweaking and optimising as technologies have advanced. Like a lot of things, computers have meant big changes for the screen printing process, which these days tends to happen via graphic designs created digitally, and, in the case of medium and larger print studios, fed through an automated printing press.

One of the biggest impacts digitisation has had on modern-day screen printing is the ability to print mesh screens digitally this video is a cool visual explainer of how your artwork becomes a screen printing screen via a digital printer. Inks have come a long way too, both aesthetically and otherwise. For our deep dive into the screen printing process at Everpress HQ head here. Alternatively, screen printing will be a great choice when colours need to be incredibly vibrant for a particular design.

We hope this helps you understand the key details about where print on demand is today. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Skip to content November 13, Latest Posts.

The Birth Of Print On Demand The true birth of this process and the beginning of the industry originates in the s.

It ensured that it was easier to create unique designs. Printing On Demand Today One of the most popular trends within the print on demand industry today is personalization. The Newspaper Guild established in , affiliated with the Communications Workers of America in McMurtrie, a Depression-era section the Historical Records Survey to identify and catalogue US imprints produced before west of the Mississippi.

Suspended in Carlson of Queens, New York. Term "prepress" replaces "pre-makeready" used in commercial letterpress, particularly in regard to printing photoengravings.

Claire Van Vliet establishes the Janus Press. Helvetica typeface introduced. Dye-sublimation printing developed. Image scanner pixels introduced. Tilon, the first photopolymer-based letterpress plate is developed by Time, Inc. Letraset, dry rub-down instant lettering developed. Walter Hamady founds his Perishable Press. In , he moves to the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Nexus Press is founded by Michael Goodman and others in Atlanta. Ran through Judith Hoffberg begins publishing Umbrella , a critical journal of artists' books.

TeX typesetting system developed by Donald Knuth. It revolutionized the composition and publication of technical books and journals. Microsoft Disk Operating System introduced. Adobe Systems Inc. Emigre, Inc. Microtek dpi black and white scanner introduced. PostScript typesetting language introduced. Apple LaserWriter desktop printer introduced.

PageMaker one of the first desktop publishing programs introduced. Minnesota Center for Book Arts opens in Minneapolis. Pyramid Atlantic, a private studio for printmaking, papermaking, and book arts, founded by Helen Frederick. QuarkXPress desktop publishing program. Production-publishing system that allowed paper documents to be scanned, electronically edited, and then printed on demand.

Sixteen issued published through TrueType scalable computer introduced. Practical Typecasting by Theo Rehak. In , it moved with Freeman to Columbia College, Chicago. World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty ensures that computer programs are protected as literary works. Fine Press Book Association founded.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Fine Press Book Association launched its biannual journal Parenthesis. Blogger online self-publishing app launches.

The entire Gutenberg Bible available at gutenbergdigital. Creative Commons, a non-profit "devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.

WordPress open source online publishing platform launched. It allows users to send and read character messages called tweets. College Book Art Association is formed, professionalizing book art education, supporting academic book artists and students, setting standards, and promoting the field.

Instagram online mobile photo and video-sharing service launched. John's Bible first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine Abbey since the invention of printing. Snapchat image messaging and multimedia mobile application London Centre for Book Arts opens. The image is a solar eclipse that becomes the moon. It reverts to the original image as it cools. Government Publishing Office declares the last remnants of its letterpress operation to be hazardous waste and sends off its remaining Vandercooks, Intertypes, Ludlows and cases of foundry type—the last physical artifacts of what once was the largest hot metal operation on earth—for scrap.

Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics no longer tracks the commercial printing industry for its monthly jobs report. Gehl, Jeffrey D. Groves, John G. White, Colyn Wohlmut, Corinna Zeltsman. Berry, W. Turner and H. Edmund Poole. Annuals of Printing , Blandford Chappell Warren. Moran, James. Printing Presses , University of California Press, ebook.

Steinberg, S. Stijnman, Ad. Engraving and Etching —