A Glossary of Printing Engraving Termsīanknote engraving: a form of engraving using lines, dots, and wiggly dashes to create the visual effect of pictorial images such as portraits and landscapes. Image commissioned by and courtesy of the author. This glossary covers some printing, plate and die making technologies, and lightly touches upon design, art preparation, and make-ready practices.įIGURE 4 – Banknote engraving by William Fleishell III, staff engraver at the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. An over simplified but easy way to think about how engraving differs from the much more popular specialty printing letterpress: think of engraving prints as outie belly buttons and letterpress prints as an innie. To be clearer still, the main difference between engraving and regular, flat printing is that it’s raised on the front and has an indentation on the reverse side. Illustrated in these photos are differences that can be observed in the two processes such as the extreme amount of minute detail in engraving compared to a coarser handling of shading and detail in relief printing. Being clear, engraving printing companies remain contemporaneous with all digital media what has not changed is the physical engraving and printing method.įIGURE 3 – Close-ups: LEFT: Intaglio or engraved printing.
In general, commercial engraving technology has not evolved significantly since about the 1990s when compatibilities with digital media became crucial. Engraving for commercial use, like in stationery, has evolved in the last hundred or so years into a niche requiring special printing presses, inks, and technologies. Real engraving, the printed kind, is very simple-required only are an extremely sharp knife-like tool, a piece of metal, ink, paper, and force. The original of this print was engraved by hand. Pound engraving of Prince Albert illustrating how the detail is rendered, one dot and dash at a time in engraved prints. Courtesy of the author.įIGURE 2 – Close-up: D.J. 1950s half-inch steel engraved stationery die. Pound from the book The Drawing-Room Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages, Volume 2. For a wider audience, I excerpted and edited the glossary of engraving terms and definitions of this erstwhile and under-appreciated process.įIGURE 1 – Steel engraving of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, by D.J. Albeit stationery-centric, I wrote a book about it called The Complete Engraver. Due to its insanely minute ability to render detail, printing engraving remains the most amazing print reproduction process in the world.
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