German inventor Johannes Gutenberg developed the moveable type printing press in 1440. The press allowed for mass production of printed books, which ultimately cut the cost of books. With the lower cost, books were more widely available to the general public.
Though printing books was much quicker, books in general lost their value. Until then books had been handwritten and designed in a scriptorium. The book making process was time consuming and the working conditions were often less than ideal. Each book had its own character through the decorative elements the scribe put into it.
The Book of Kells is a great example of how detailed and ornate each page in a book prior to the printing press had been. The colors, construction, and fine interlacing are examples of Irish manuscripts. The decorative elements such as the details in the capital began to diminish with the rise of the printing press. There was also an attempt at similarity of letterforms in the book, but nothing like what the printing press brought along. Books like this one were commissioned works that cost lots of time and money to create. Only the wealthy could afford the luxury of books and reading. After the printing press, books became more available to the public and therefore less valuable. There was less pride put into making them since they could be made so quickly compared to earlier methods.
All the books from the press looked similar since they had been created from the same blocks. A standardization of text began to develop as the printing press itself became more standardized. Text became more universal as blocks were produced and similar books followed parallel layouts based on the contents. For example, the Gutenberg Bible was printed with two columns per page and a title at the top. Limited detail work was included in the text, but the elaborate designs in the borders and margins of the page were eliminated.
Compare that to this handwritten Latin Bible. This Bible was transcribed in Belgium in 1407 for reading aloud in a monastery. Even though it is from a different place the idea is very similar to what other countries were doing at the time. The Bible pages are divided into two columns with a title at the top. Decorative elements and flourishes are still present just not as overbearing in previous years. The text contains an intricate outline of floral elements as well as a depiction of a scene the text is probably talking about. The craftsmanship of the designs is beautiful and for being handwritten the text is surprisingly consistent. The letterforms themselves do still contain some eloquence in ascenders and descenders. This detail is eliminated later when text becomes more universal due to the press.
Another example of similarities and differences within page layouts before and after the printing press are the following:
Book Of Hours (Fragment)
15th Century
ARTstor.com
"Vita et Fabulaeu"
Aesop
Feb. 13, 1485
ARTstor.com
The Book of Hours page is greatly detailed. There is a scene with a girl reading on a hill, but the profile of her face is skewed, which is common of the time. Flowers, vines, leaves, and additional characters surround the window in which her scene is. There was an interest in nature and the order of everything at the time this book was created. The intricate work with the smaller flowers is amazing and there seems to be an emphasis on the beauty around her. The additional figures are also semi-skewed since scribes were not artistically trained. The capital is an element that was typical of the time. This book is one of the most well know examples of an early picture book, where more emphasis is placed on the picture than the words.
A similar layout is the page from Aesop’s Fables entitled, “Vita et Fabulaeu.” The focus is on the picture depicting a man carrying a trunk and perhaps large water bags. A press printed the text below and clearly it is more uniformed. A big difference is the spacing and addition of punctuation marks. The Book of Hours text runs together because there was no set standard for handwriting. Though some decorative elements remain, the majority of them are gone. All that remains is the image itself and the small, lightly detailed border around it. Under the text the margins are clear as well and there is no capital on the page.
Overall, the printing press was able to produce mass quantities of books for a cheaper price, but by doing so took out much of the detail that made books so special in the first place. Quality of the book itself degraded with the press. Decorative elements and ornate details throughout the margins and borders of the page were greatly reduced if not taken out of most printed texts. Certain design aspects like basic layouts of pages were carried over with the invention of the press from place to place. Text became more uniformed and universal with the use of the press, which was helpful as more people were exposed to books and reading. The printing press allowed for more legibility whereas individual handwritings would vary. The use of punctuation, accent marks, spacing between letters and words, the double alphabet, and paragraphs were also developed during the time of the printing press to increase the legibility as well. But with the standardization of printed materials much of the aesthetic qualities were lost.
