1.1 Books

Gutenberg’s work and his invention of printing with movable lead type in the middle of the fifteenth century triggered a revolution in book production. A much greater proportion of the population had the chance to acquire education, culture, and information than had ever been possible with hand-written books. Consequently, illiteracy decreased in the following centuries. Books continued to be colored by hand even after Gutenberg’s invention, so that very colorful volumes of high quality comparable to earlier ones were still produced. For over 500 years letterpress was the dominant printing technology for books. Only when phototypesetting and lithographic printing became widespread in the 1970s did the printed book turn into a low cost mass medium. It was not only more efficient production processes but also the availability of inexpensive paper that were decisive reasons for the breakthrough of books as mass media. The printed book developed its independent appearance over time. The form of the type used moved away from imitated script types to its own type forms. The number of new book titles produced has grown continually since Gutenberg’s invention. Even today, in the age of electronic media, annual growth rates in book production are still recorded. With close to eighty thousand titles produced annually, Germany is one of the biggest markets for books in the world today. Only China and Great Britain produced more titles in 1997. In 1998 more than 500 million books worth over 3.5 billion Euros were produced in Germany. The extensive range of books is classified on the one hand in terms of content; on the other, it extends from high-quality, thread-stitched leather volumes with a gilt edge to simple perfect-bound pocket books/ paperbacks. Books are offered both in one color (book printing) as well as in top-quality multicolor art publications. The range of books available today in Germany has risen to over 770000 titles. The same applies to other printed products such as magazines, periodicals, newspapers, and brochures.

1.2 Magazines

The range of magazines consists mainly of periodicals, including trade magazines, journals, and illustrated magazines. Trade magazines cover a limited field, thus attracting a limited specialist readership. Unlike books, production costs for magazines are not paid for exclusively by the final consumer. Often more than half of the costs are financed by advertising. Magazines are usually published by publishing houses just like books. Unlike books, magazines usually have a shorter lifespan. This is due to the content and it is a major characteristic of the periodical. Since magazines have a limited length of use and differ from books greatly in terms of content, their external form also differs from that of books. Magazine production differs considerably from book production. Magazines are generally multicolored booklets with a flexible cover. They often have a high circulation and are bound using simple binding processes (e.g., wire-stitching, perfect binding). Depending on the circulation, magazines are printed with sheet-fed offset or web offset presses, but rotogravure presses are also used for magazines with a very high circulation.