The Development of Contemporary Social Printing

The history of Chinese printing has a long history, up and down for thousands of years. If one looks at the evolution of time as a coordinate system, the fastest is the change since the second half of the century. Compared with thousands of years of time, half a century is only a moment of history. In this short historical “moment,” the printing industry in China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) has made considerable progress. This is the “General History of Chinese Printing”. The content to be summarized.

Printing is a comprehensive reflection of social economy, culture and science and technology. First, printing is a comprehensive reflection of social economy, culture and science and technology.

People often regard the overall level of a country's printing industry as a sign related to its economic and cultural level and reflect its economic and cultural level. This makes some sense. Economics and culture were originally two different social categories, and the development of society is promoting the integration of the two. As we all know, culture belongs to the spiritual category, and its dissemination depends to a large extent on the material carrier—prints, which are mostly commodities in the field of economic circulation. As the packaging and decoration of goods in the field of economic circulation, it is increasingly showing its cultural content, packaging and decoration printing is becoming an important part of the printing industry. From the aspect of education, the textbooks used by primary and middle school students account for more than one third of the printed output. The printing industry has become an indispensable material basis for modern education. Certain social culture is a comprehensive reflection of society, and the overall level of the printing industry is precisely a comprehensive reflection of social economy, culture, science and technology.

One of the salient features of modern social production is that professional division of labor is becoming more and more detailed, but the relationship between different professions and even different categories of science and technology has become more and more intense. People are integrating science and technology in other fields into printing technology, changing the appearance of traditional printing technology, and also transplanting printing technology into other industrial production fields. Modern science and technology are "you have me, I have you." Since the 1970s, printing technology has grown from the original manual and mechanized technology to the integration of various modern science and technology such as laser technology, electronic computer technology, polymer chemical technology, and precision machinery technology. It has become the most dynamic in the contemporary society. Graphic information processing is a comprehensive application technology in the field of communication technology.

Printing and Printing Industry> Second, Printing and Printing Industry

The printing technology and printing industry, although they are related to each other, have two different meanings. The traditional printing industry refers to the application of printing technology and industrialized production methods to produce an industrial category of printed matter. Such as newspaper and book printing, packaging trademark printing, stationery and commercial printing, securities printing, etc. can be seen as the scope of the printing industry. Obviously, the printing industry is a branch of the manufacturing industry in the social economy.

As far as printing technology is concerned, printing refers to a process technology that transfers graphic information of a manuscript to a substrate by printing plates or other means. One of the “four great inventions” often referred to as printing refers to printing technology. Since the use of "invention" means that printing is a natural science technology, not a social science. It is not only the most important production technology of the printing industry. In other areas of industrial production, there is a place where typography can be used wherever there is transfer, copy and transfer of manuscripts. For example, the screen printing technology used in the printing and dyeing of textile fabrics is part of the textile printing and dyeing industry; the use of decals printing is an important component of the ceramic industry; the use of the production of circuit boards is the printed circuit board technology of the electronic industry, etc. Wait. The main thread that runs through the “General History of Printing in China” is the whole process of gestation, sprouting, growth and development of Chinese printing. To the contemporary society, the application of printing has greatly exceeded the scope of the printing industry, in the printing and dyeing industry, the ceramic industry, There are applications in other industrial productions such as the electronics industry and the building materials industry. Since it is the history of the printing industry, we should try to summarize the various aspects of the application of printing technology. However, due to the wide range of application of printing technology and the fact that the management of the contemporary printing industry is too fragmented and lacks complete data and system statistics, the authors are constrained by their limited capabilities and are unable to take care of all aspects. The chapter "Industrial Printing" can only give a brief overview of its technological evolution. Without the necessary data, it is pale and regrettable.

Printing Industry Management System> Third, Printing Industry Management System

Three hundred and sixty lines can be said that the line can not be separated from the printing, small to the internal printing of the paperwork, to build a professional printing plant. The publishing system includes books and printing houses; the news and publicity system includes newspaper printing factories; the light industry and foreign trade systems include packaging and decoration printing plants; the bank system includes banknote printing plants; the railway system has printing facilities that print train tickets; the mapping system includes map printing plants. The textile system has a fabric printing and dyeing factory. In the face of the fact that printing technology is applied to various systems of the society and is highly decentralized, the management system of the printing industry naturally forms the “four-who” management system of “who uses, who builds, who has, and who controls”. Under the very weak foundation of the printing industry in the 1950s, relying on all aspects of society to develop the printing industry and mobilize the enthusiasm of everyone was always better than mobilizing the enthusiasm of the family. This has indeed played a positive role in the development of the printing industry in the 50s and 60s. However, long-term decentralized management, the lack of coordination between the printing industry and the printing equipment and equipment industry, did not regard the development of the printing industry as a system project, and did not even treat printing as an industry. By the early 1980s, the long-term accumulation of problems in the printing industry became more and more obvious. Exposed. The "Decision Concerning the Strengthening of Publishing Work" issued by the State Council on June 6, 1983 contained a phrase: "It is universally recognized that the backwardness of the printing industry not only indicates the backwardness of a country's cultural education, but also indicates that the economic development is backward. Now China The printing industry is much behind many developing countries. It is also much behind China's overall economic development.” The backwardness of the book printing industry is mainly reflected in “the poor management of books and periodicals, outdated equipment, extremely backward technology, and insufficient production capacity.” Packaging and decoration printing also have the same old equipment and technical backwardness. Prior to this, the national leaders had criticized the packaging and decoration printing as "first-class products, second-class packaging, and third-class prices." In the early 1980s, China's newspaper printing also generally used lead to print.

In all fairness, compared with the end of the forties in the early 1980s, the printing industry achieved great results. The problem is the speed of development of the printing industry. It not only lags behind the developing speed of developing countries in the world, but also lags behind the national economy. The speed of development of culture and education. Compared with others, the pace of progress is slow and backward.

In order to accelerate the development of China's printing industry and its printing-related equipment manufacturing and equipment manufacturing industries, it quickly changed the backward appearance of China's printing industry. In 1982, the National Economic Committee took the lead, together with the departments of culture, machinery, electronics, light industry and chemical engineering. A printing technology equipment coordination group was established. In 1983, the state set up a special allocation for printing technology reform. In December 1985, the China Printing and Equipment Industry Association was established. With the concerted efforts of all parties, through the development of the sixth, seventh and eighth five-year plans (1980 to 1995), by 1997, the supply capacity of China's printing equipment has been able to meet the needs of general printing companies. . The output and quality of paper, ink and plate making materials have been greatly improved. The production capacity and quality of books, newspapers, printing, packaging, decoration and printing have made gratifying achievements.

The issue of the reform of the management system of China's printing industry has long been a topic that has been discussed by many colleagues in the printing industry and has not been well resolved. In 1982, after the establishment of the Printing and Technical Equipment Coordination Group of the State Economic Commission, he wanted to embark on the reform of China's printing industry management system. In May 1983, the State Economic Commission entrusted the Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture to form an investigation team and, in the name of the State Economic Commission, conducted a comprehensive investigation on how to reform the management system of China's printing industry. This writer was one of the members of this investigation team at that time. From May 1983 to November of the same year, the investigation team successively convened books and periodicals printing, newspaper printing, packaging and decoration printing, printing scientific research, education, and printing in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Xi’an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan and other cities. All parties in charge of material supply and business departments held a forum to listen to everyone’s opinions on the reform of the printing industry management system. In the following three aspects, everyone's views are basically the same. These are: 1) Printing is industrialized production, and printing enterprises should be managed in accordance with the management methods of industrial enterprises; 2) Printing management is too fragmented and is not conducive to the development of the printing industry. It is proposed to establish an agency under the State Council to implement centralized management of the national printing industry (enterprise The original affiliation does not change.) 3 The common issues related to printing equipment production, material supply, personnel education, etc. shall be managed uniformly throughout the country. Although the printing industry in the country was quite large in size in 1983, all enterprises were scattered in different systems and departments. Packaging and decorating printing companies were dispersed in the light industry sector at the most, but in the light industry sector, a complete top-down management system has yet to be formed. In contrast, the printing of books and publications in the publishing department is not only large-scale, but also has formed a top-down management system. The investigation team summarized the opinions of various parties. Starting from the above actual conditions, the proposed reform of the management system was: the establishment of the China National Printing Industry Corporation and centralized management of the national printing industry (the original affiliation of the company is unchanged). The head office may consider affiliation with the Ministry of Culture; general matters relating to the printing industry, such as printing materials and personnel education, shall be under the centralized management of the head office. Due to the deep-rooted traditional management concepts that have been formed under the planned economic system for a long time, the new reform plan is still difficult to accept. The Ministry of Culture also lacks experience in managing industry. Under the opposition of the relevant parties, the reform plan proposed by the investigation team was actually rejected.

The four stages of the development of the printing industry> The four stages of the development of the printing industry

Looking at the history of the development of China's printing industry in the past half century, it is roughly divided into four stages. From the end of the forties to the end of 1956, the nationwide transformation of private industrial and commercial socialism and the realization of public-private partnerships were the first stage. From 1957 to 1965 was the second stage. From 1966 to 1976 was the third stage. After 1977 was the fourth stage.

The first stage. Since the modern times, the distribution of China's printing industry has focused on several large cities on the eastern coast. The printing bases of the cities in the central and western regions and the Mainland have been weak. In 1949, a small number of coastal cities had more than two-thirds of the total number of printers in the country, and nearly half of the lead printers. Except for the 12 state-run Xinhua printing plants, the vast majority of printing plants are private factories. After social stability, with the revitalization of cultural and educational undertakings, the printing industry quickly flourished. However, due to the fact that the publishing business was still in its infancy, the growth in the number of books and periodicals was not yet fast. By 1953, some private printing companies in Shanghai had experienced underemployment. There was a temporary surplus in the productivity of books and periodicals, so that the General Administration of Publication had to take measures to limit the excessive growth in productivity of printed books and periodicals. In 1956, with the nationwide development of the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce, private printing factories were either merged into public-private joint ventures or merged into state-owned printing factories.

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