Sunday, September 05, 2010

It All Comes Down to the Sheep

Got Medieval: Why are books so big? (Google Penance): "[M]edieval books are no bigger or smaller than modern books, generally speaking. Gutenberg and the other early printers didn't invent a whole new format for books, they just copied what people were already using.

The question then becomes, I guess, why were medieval books the size they were? And the answer to that is simple: medieval books were the size they were because medieval sheep were the size they were."

Link via Neatorama.

1 comment:

Cap'n Bob said...

I've worked in print shops where we printed 64 pages at a time. Layout was tricky and had to account for the proper folds and trims, to say nothing of printing the reverse side of the sheet. Not a job for the weak of heart, though there is a technique that minimizes mistakes.