Places
Printing Techniques
Click on the different colors to see how five colors work together
to create one full color image. Try again with the owl.
Credit: 5 Color Progressive Lithograph, Gift
of William Rambo, History San José Collection
Art Director Ralph Rambo learned the art of graphic design and production on the job at Muirson Label Company, under the guidance of hand-engraver E.W. Barnes. In the 1910’s and 1920’s, the technique of hand-stippling was used to create almost all graphic art. In the printing process, full color is applied to each plate. To create the appearance of a range of color from dark to light, the image is broken up into dots; the resulting image is called a halftone. Images with more white and fewer color dots will be lighter than those with more color dots. Full-color printing in the early 20th century required the creation of a plate composed of these dots from at least four separate hand-stippled drawings, one for each primary color. Each vignette Rambo and Barnes created was translated by hand into four separate drawings composed of dots. Rambo estimated that the work required about 48 hours for each and every vignette.
Fortunately, technology developed to spare the artist from hand-stippling. Later methods, like Ben Day screen and direct color photography, gradually automated the process of creating the halftones necessary for successful color printing. What had once taken more than a week’s work could be done in just under an hour by the time Rambo retired in 1966.
