As many of the prior posts have acknowledged, punchcutting is a long, arduous process. One that has much room for error as the typesetter must be careful and pay close attention to what he or she is doing. Other than the errors that may occur during the punchcutting process, which will be solved through trial and error, the only issue I see that will affect any of our designs is quick turn around. In today’s world, designers and agencies have the ability to create and recreate designs, photographs, ads, stories and much more at a moments notice and hand them to their clients within a days time. I do not see that happening with punchcutting due to its long processes.

This method there is less room for mistakes. If it were on the computer you can always undo all the mistakes. This method if you put it on the paper you have to make sure the letters are aligned. You have to space your letter more carefully. The angles have to be place in the right spots. It limits the design to a certain extent because you have to pay attention to messing up where as on the computer it not that big of a deal

Being that this is a process and not just a simple method, a person doing this would have to be careful.  It is an art within itself because of how precise the person has to be when making the letters.  They would need to pay full attention to every detail they make when doing this.  In regards to my design, I would be one of those people who took very careful steps to make sure I wouldn’t mess anything up.  Making sure all the serifs are correct in regards to there specific fonts.  The work of punchcutting would come out much better if there was time to plan ahead on how you were going to go about starting the process, and then actually doing it opposed to rushing into the punchcutting.  My designs would either be better or worse just depending on how much time and effort I put into it.

-Paul Perez

Q: How you think working with this method would affect your design

A: In my opinion, working with this method one has to be absolutely precise about their design. Because punch-cutting is so direct, the user will not be able to design as freely compared to a simple click on a computer. The process itself is very meticulous, and I think if we were to transfer that onto our work we will spend countless number of hours brainstorming before we actually start. That would be a negative perspective on punchcutting. A positive perspective would be that because it is so meticulous, every type is made to perfection. Our design, whether it be organized or random the design will have the same type face throughout the whole project. And through that we are able to focus on other things like space variation, letter variation, etc. In conclusion, punch cutting has some pro and cons, but it is something that is not obsolete.

It seems as though punchingcutting is a very time consuming craft. One which requires lots of patience, skill, and precision. Not only do you have to spend time carefully creating and cutting a punch and filing a matrix for each letter, but you must have a design thoroughly planned out before executing it. It’s mind boggling to think that so much time was put into creating one single letter. My guess is that when working with punchcutting there isn’t any room for mistakes or error unless you plan on recreating your design from scratch. Punchcutting would most likely get extremely frustrating to me after not much time at all. I feel like we are all so privileged to have the ability to experiment and constantly change things around in our work, that the thought of going into a design without the option of effortlessly being able to go back would scare me! I’m curious to see designs made from punchcutting back then and how they vary, because I wonder if all the hard work that went behind creating a deisgn constrained designers to always play it safe with same, familar, basic designs. I feel like this method would restrict my creativity because I would always play it “more safe than sorry.” But that could just be because this craft is sort of absurd to me, and I’m sure that back then people weren’t so lazy considering this was the norm and also the only way. One reason I wouldn’t mind punchcutting is because throughout the process you sort of have no choice but to be extremely observant of all the detailing in each specific letter, and because of that you are bound to grow a stronger appreciation for letters and fonts. Anyway, I certainly give those who worked and still work with punchcutting a lot of credit.

Punch cutting method may be is a very interesting process, but as is for me it is a very long process. I guess this kind of the letters are good for writers who use the old printing machines  where letters can be adjusted to write their books. Or, for example in Japan people use to put their signature by using  Punch cutting letters. And, it very comfortable for them i guess. But, for advertise companies or news paper companies  where every minute can be important and where the client can change their mind in last minute and want make something different, using the punch cutting system  would be very  hard. By using new technologies we can make a lot of changes, additions,  experiments, create different background and so on.

typesetting/punchcutting

Watch the Punchcutting video. If you have time, watch the remaining four videos.
Assignment is also available on Blackboard.

Write a paragraph about how you think working with this method would affect your design.