ABSTRACT
Technical changes encouraged a larger scale of production; this in turn led to wider markets, and a search for new techniques to speed up or cheapen production still further. A large element in the cost of hand composition using individual letters was the cost of ‘distributing’ the type after use, an operation which cost about one quarter as much as the actual composition. The Linotype completely eliminated this expense, for after use the slugs are simply returned to the melting pot. The revolution in presswork achieved by the introduction of high speed rotary machines was no less spectacular than that in composition. Improvements in colour printing and photographic reproduction coincided conveniently with the rapid development of poster and display advertising, and gave renewed stimulus to the job printing trade. The growth of large firms was most spectacular in the case of the London dailies.
