A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Xerography
(See Electrostatic Printing)

Xograph
A two dimensional image that creates the illusion of three dimensions by means of a textured plastic sheet being adhered to its surface. The texture in the plastic causes light to fracture at different angles, so as the eye moves it appears that you are seeing the objects in the image from a different perspective. Cowles Communications and Eastman Chemical Products developed this process in 1965. Visual Panographics in New York were the first to manufacture xographs for use as magazine illustration, baseball cards, and postcards.

Xylography
The wood engraving method when used in conjunction with letterpress printing. Because these wood blocks could be surfaced rolled and were durable, it allowed them to be locked into the same forms used with type and printed together as letterpress. Eventually the wood blocks would be made even stronger by casting them into metal through electrography. This also allowed them to be stereotyped, and they became the first means of creating pictures that could be printed on a rotary press. The creation of wood engravings requires highly skilled artists and it was a slow and expensive technique sometimes taking weeks to produce. In order to get illustrations into newspapers in a timely manner, a team system was developed. Engraving blocks are only available in small pieces because they are cuts of end grain woods, not planks, and the hardness required is only available from particular small trees such as boxwood or pear (hardwoods). A number of these small blocks would be clamped together forming one large plate. The master artist would then make his drawing, the clamps would be removed, and each piece given to an individual engraver to work on. When this work was done all sections would then be reassembled, glued together, and the master artist would finish engraving the image where all the pieces met. Because they were open to the artist’s interpretation, and sometimes based on another artist’s field sketches, they often suffered when accompanying news stories for their lack of accuracy. Eventually a method of transferring photographs directly onto the wood’s surface was developed, but by this time the process was already in decline due to cost and alternative methods.