Gutenberg Beuys. The fine printing company
Gutenberg Beuys? The exotic name of a new boy band from the USA? No. Behind this - admittedly somewhat unusual - trademark lies one of the best, multi-award-winning printing companies in Germany, specializing in the production of printing works exclusively in the 120 print format.
Fine printing by Gutenberg Beuys
The 120 grid refines the printing result many times over compared to the commonly used grid of less than 100 lines per centimeter. The advantages are obvious - especially for illustrated books: through the elimination of moiré and rosette formation, a larger color range and finer gradients. Even small font sizes are razor-sharp. In combination with the highly pigmented colors that are also always used, a brilliant printing result is achieved.
The Gutenberg Beuys fine printing house was founded in Hanover in 1998 by master printer Matthias Hake. The management was later expanded to include Christian Lieb and Umut Yilmaz. The fine printing company's buildings have been located in Langenhagen near Hanover since 2011. The workforce has grown from five to over 60 employees. “Despite all the changes and uncertainties, the love for the finest printed works has never been lost,” it says on the company’s website.
Printed: “Nomads of our time. Migrant sheep farms in Schleswig-Holstein”
Already the illustrated book “A turning point. The fishermen from Holm in Schleswig an der Schlei” was produced in the Gutenberg-Beuys fine printing house. The second edition of the publication is now out of print. After this positive response, the Sparkassenstiftung Schleswig-Holstein decided as publisher, in coordination with the newly commissioned Wachholtz publishing house, to also publish my new book - “Nomads of our time. Migrant sheep farms in Schleswig-Holstein” – to have it produced in Langenhagen.
I had the opportunity to personally accompany the printing process in dialogue with my colleague at the offset sheetfed press. Humans are still the benchmark for all processes, and so with several test runs we were able to achieve the best possible print profile adjustment: a great image depth with rich black and finely graduated gray tones. Without loss of definition in the dark and light areas of the black and white photographs. For any printer, achieving this balance is a balancing act. Just the right dose of black. Not too much, but not too little either.
However, the processes in today's printing companies no longer have anything to do with the “black art” of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of modern letterpress printing. Rather, the workplace of a “print media technologist” – the new job title for the ancient craft of printing – resembles a complex, digitized command center.
Illustrated book “Nomads of Our Time” in bookstores from March 13, 2023
The book “Nomads of our time. Migrant sheep farms in Schleswig-Holstein” appears in Wachholtz Publishing and will be available in bookstores from March 13, 2023. The volume accompanies an exhibition tour that begins on March 31, 2023 in Schleswig in the Nord-Ostsee Sparkasse gallery.
