The First Color Print

On August 14, 1457, the Mainz Psalter was completed, the first book printed with multiple colors. The printers, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, used movable type with colored inks applied to specific letters and decorative elements. Red and blue initials stood out against black text, creating a visual hierarchy that guided the eye and gave the page structure. This was not hand-illumination. It was mechanical reproduction in color. Every copy was identical, printed from the same blocks with the same inks in the same places. The Mainz Psalter proved that the printing press could do more than replicate text. It could design for visual impact.

Johannes Gutenberg had introduced movable type to Europe just two years earlier with his 42-line Bible. But Gutenberg's press used only black ink. Fust and Schöffer, who had worked with Gutenberg before a bitter legal dispute ended their partnership, pushed the technology further. They developed a method to print multiple colors in a single pass by inking specific sections of the type in different colors before pressing the page. This required precision. The alignment had to be perfect. If the registration was off even slightly, the colors would blur or misalign. The fact that it worked at all was an achievement.

the sack of mainz in 1462, when adolph II of nassau's soldiers destroyed peter schöffer's printing workshop, scattering its trained printers across europe. source: wikimedia commons

The Mainz Psalter was a luxury object. Only a few dozen copies were printed, each expensive and intended for wealthy patrons or institutions. But its significance was not in its exclusivity. It was in the proof of concept. Color printing was possible. Information could be layered visually, not just textually. A page could communicate through contrast, emphasis, and structure, using color as a tool for meaning. The red initials in the Psalter were not decoration. They were navigational. They told the reader where to start, where to pause, how to move through the text.

Color printing evolved slowly. The technology was difficult and costly. For centuries, most printed material remained black and white. When color was needed, it was added by hand, defeating the purpose of mechanical reproduction. It was not until the 19th century, with advances in lithography and chromolithography, that multi-color printing became practical at scale. By the 20th century, color was everywhere: posters, magazines, advertisements, packaging. What began as a technical curiosity in a Mainz print shop became the default visual language of modern media.

a page from the mainz psalter (1457), the first book printed with multiple colors using mechanical movable type, produced by johann fust and peter schöffer. source: wikimedia commons

The Mainz Psalter sits in libraries now, fragile and rare, a relic of the earliest days of print. But the principle it demonstrated is still fundamental. Color is information. It creates hierarchy, directs attention, conveys emotion. Every website, every app, every piece of graphic design uses color to guide the user, just as Fust and Schöffer used red and blue to guide the reader's eye across a page. The tools have changed. The intent remains. Design is not just what something looks like. It is how it works. And in 1457, color became part of how printed pages worked.