McKay Graphic Design

The Amazing Linotype Lives on

January 25, 2021

This topic is a curiosity though if you’re into design and love typography, you’ll probably find it interesting.

A quick history of the invention of Mergenthaler Linotype. Nobody remembers Linotype anymore. The World War II generation of printers and commercial artists would have. Some of us vaguely remember phototypesetting machines that replaced Linotype. Compugraphic was the prevailing equipment used in the 1980s, but that’s a different post.

The thing that was revolutionary about the invention of Linotype in the late 1800s is that for the first time an entire ‘line of type’ could be produced, rather than assembling individual letters manually with a composing stick. Communication technology took a major leap forward into modernity. This directly affected the production, volume, and reach of American newspapers. Linotype made American newspapers and magazines as we know them today. Newspapers were no longer only 8 pages long, out of laborious necessity and cost. Print media became the foundation of a new century of American journalism. Writers found consistent distribution in the new era of the magazine industry.

Ottmar Merganthaler emigrated from Germany to Baltimore in the 1880s and invented the Linotype machine. Check out this trailer from a film about Linotype to get the significance of this machine from those who knew it.

I was fortunate to have known guys and some women of the older breed depicted in this trailer when I first started working. The transition from Linotype to phototypesetting was a major shift but not radical enough to put all those people out of work. Print production at that point was still a hands-on trade, and a page was not yet composed in its entirety using design software.

Fast forward to the early 2000s. If you were lucky enough to work in a design firm that had been established by somebody old school, chances are they had a retired mentor ensconced in a cubicle a couple of days a week. Likely that person was an 80-something, hand-lettering guy. He also reigned as the resident encyclopedia of all things related to lettering, type, design, and print. Generally, the shift to digital design and production in the early ‘90s put most people in the field over the age of 40 out of work. It was dismal. The shift was far more radical than moving from Linotype to phototypesetting. Most adults of at least 40 years of age remember the culture-altering transition to the modern office and modern world of design.

The last newspaper in America to be printed with Linotype is the “Saguache Crescent” in Saguache, Colorado. The following video is with the publisher Dean Coombs.

Footnote: there’s been a tiny revival in the use of Mergenthaler Linotype at specialty design and print shops such as the amazing @woodsidepress in Brooklyn, NY.

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Additional links:
“Linotype: The Film” available in its entirety here for free:
Watch Linotype: The Film - In Search Full Movie Free Online Streaming | Tubi (tubitv.com)