History & development of graphic design
Michael Koninin
=== Cut ===
Honey Bee Graphics Web Site
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT OF GRAPHIC DESIGN
HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT OF GRAPHIC DESIGN
(Complete document)
Graphic design is essentially visual communication, the visual representation
of ideas and concepts. Graphics as an art form exploded with the rise of
photomechanical reproduction processes in conjunction with the use of fast
printing methods, and the de pendable manufacture endurable paints, printing
inks, quality papers and boards. Graphic art and design is a product of
mechanisation, facilitated by the demand for broad communications using popular
and cheap materials which are be easily transported. Technology from
photography, photo engraving, lithography to print and computer technologies
has acted as a catalyst to the design solutions of graphic artists.
Since prehistoric times, people have given visual form to ideas and concepts,
in order to store knowledge in graphic form, and bring order and clarity to
information. Over the course of history, various people including scribes,
printers, and artists hav e filled these needs. Not until 1922 a book designer
William A Dwiggins coined the term "graphic design" to describe his activities
as an individual who brought structured order and visual form to printed
communications. Thus an emerging profession receiv ed an appropriate name.
The visual communication of ideas and information since the earliest of times
evolved in various areas from pictograms. Examples can be seen in Chinese
picture writing, cuneiform from Mesopotamia, Mayan pictograms and Egyptian
hieroglyphics. Pictograms d eveloped into ideograms, which later developed into
alphabets. The alphabet we use today is derived from the first alphabet
developed by the Phoenicians (1700-1500 BC) and later modified by the Greeks
and Romans. The Phoenicians allocated a simple sound t o a symbol and then
rearranged the symbols into a written language. Unlike ideograms, which have no
relationship to pronunciation, these Phoenician symbols spawned many languages,
many of which are in use today, for example the Arabic, Greek, Russian and
Roman alphabets. The Chinese characters however are a separate development,
which remain based on the ideogram.
Although the storehouse of knowledge from philosophy to poetry was huge and
rich in the ancient world enough to inspire and fuel the "rebirth" of learning,
that is humanism in 14th Century Europe literacy as such was a restricted
skill. The disintegratio n of the Roman Empire heralded the Dark Ages of the
4th to 6th Centuries. The great migrations of the Visigoths, and marauding
hordes led to the destruction of culture and to a contraction of learning
westwards to the isolated monasteries of Ireland for e xample Iona.
Return To The Top Of The Page
Charlemagne, crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in 800 AD, fostered a
revival of learning in the arts. He mandated reform by royal edict in 789 AD.
At the court of Aachen a "turba scriptorium" or "crowd of scribes" was
assembled to prepare master copi es of important religious texts. Then books
and scribes were despatched through out Europe to disseminate the reforms. This
led to standardisation of page layout, writing styles, decoration and the
alphabet was successfully reformed.
The Romanesque era (1000 - 1150 AD) was a period of renewed religious fervour
and stronger feudalism. Monasticism reached its peak and liturgical books like
the Bible, Gospels and Psalters were produced in booming scriptoria, for
example Beatus Fernandes and Sancha 1047.
During the Gothic period from 1150 AD to the beginning of the 14th Century
towns and villages grew into cities. International trade flourished and money
rather than land became a measure of wealth. During the 1200's the rise in
universities created a hug e demand for books. Literacy was on the rise and
professional lay illuminators were active to help meet the growing demand for
books.
Examples of these manuscripts include, Douce Apocalypso, 1265, Gothic style
with one hundred illustrated pages, one the Ormesby Psalter written in the
1300's in England. The Hebrew and Islamic religions also had a strong tradition
of illuminated manuscrip ts. The production of illuminated manuscripts for
private use became increasingly important and in the early 1400's the "Book of
Hours" was popular. These were private devotional books in which the day was
divided into hours of the day for prayers and dev otion. The Duc du Berry
installed the Dutch Limbourg brothers to create the most famous les Tres Riches
Heures which illustrated hours, days and months of the year, zodiacs and a lot
of other detail. Books were still rare and priceless by modern standard s. In
1424 the Cambridge University had only 122 manuscript books - the value of a
book at that time was equal to a farm or vineyard.
Return To The Top Of The Page
The emerging literate middle classes snatched the monopoly on literacy away
from the clergy. The invention of typography in the 1400's was one of the most
important inventions after the creation of writing and helped meet the
insatiable demand for book s - religious, classical, and secular, for example
Dante's Inferno.
Wood block printing of playing cards and textiles had been popular since the
1300's. Devotional prints of saints with images and lettering cut from the same
block of wood were the first known as European block prints. Block books with
thirty to fifty leav es for example Ars Moriendi were produced. Miniscules
(lower case letters) were developed by the scribes of the Middle Ages as a
faster more convenient form than writing in capitals with a pen. Before the
Gutenberg invention in 1450, there were two schoo ls of writing, the round
humanist hand Rotunda in Italy, and the pointed Gothic Gothic Textura (black
letter) in Germany.
Early trade marks date back to the 15th Century and were merchants' marks used
in commerce and trade. Applied to articles offered for sale, these symbols
generally consisted of a monogram or emblem which often combined with a visual
pun of the individu al's name. A variety of craftsmen, from stone masons to
goldsmiths used these marks to authenticate the source of origin.
In the 1600's travelling merchants were replaced by fixed houses of trade and
their marks of identification were substituted by shop signboards. At first
these signs were simple pictorial representations of the trade carried on
within, for example a knife for a cutler. But with time businesses became more
competitive and imagery became more complex.
Return To The Top Of The Page
Graphic art as we know it today is the product of the technological advances,
the printing press being the primary vehicle for change. The invention of
moveable type was attributed to Gutenberg in 1450 although many printers were
working towards the same invention, was tied to the rise of printed moral
sayings, penny broadsheets and etchings that were to become the precursors to
the newspaper.
In 1475 William Caxton produced the first English language book. Claude
Garamond's first French Renaissance typeface Old Style appeared in 1531.
Earlier in 1501 Francesco Griffo made the first italic typeface, based on
Chancery Script handwriting.
By 1609 Germany had regular newspapers, and The Weekly News in Britain has been
in print since 1621. The Gutenburg press perfected the method of casting
letters on to moveable type, which remained the common until the mechanisation
in 19th Century.
In 1799 the first paper making machine was produced, followed by the steam
driven press sixteen years later. This led to the mass circulation of
newspapers. The Industrial Revolution (1800-1899) radically altered typography
and the graphic arts. Designers of the time responded with an outpouring of new
forms and images. In 1803 the first Fat Face type appeared, and in 1815 the
first Egyptian (slab serif) and shaded typefaces by Vincent Figgins appeared.
The English type founder William Caslon IV th. produ ced the first sans serif
type face in 1816.
The development of the steam engine impacted on the mechanisation of the
printing presses. The Times of London was the first steam driven printing press
was to exceed 1000 copies per hour in 1814. Increases in speed did not
necessarily lead to increases i n quality, more the reverse - the quality of
craftsmanship and moral of the workers declined.
Return To The Top Of The Page
After 1850 photo engraving allowed photographs to be reproduced in printing
were first used in the graphic arts. The first practical typewriter was
constructed in 1867.
With increased trade and the popularity of packaged goods entire label designs
were registered as trademarks to prevent copying by competitors. In Britain in
1875 The Trademarks Act initiated a system of registration whereby a
manufacturer could make excl usive claim to marks appearing on mass produced
goods. These have been published regularly in a journal since May 1876. Many
labels were for patent medicines and food, bearing the signature of real (or
presumably real) individuals attesting to the product 's authenticity. This use
of a hand-rendered typography as a unique identifying mark for a company or
product has become a traditional device in trademark design.
The linotype machine (1884) mechanically set type for newspaper which replaced
human compositors of type set. At the same time the monotyped keyboard-operated
typesetting machine was developed. The Anglo-American Point System, based on
the pica (12pt) em, was officially adapted in 1880. The offset lithographic
printer was invented in the early 1900's and enabled printing onto almost any
surface from a flat printing plate. Printing could now be done onto metal cans,
wood, plastic and paper.
By late 19th Century attempts were made to arrest the decline of quality in
design and manufacturing. William Morris (1834-1896) English poet, craftsman
and socialist writer attempted to address the demise of quality in visual
communications. He founded o f the Kelmscott Press in 1890, famous for unique
typefaces, book designs and freedom of page layout. The Kelmscott press (one of
many private presses) carried Morris' three typeface designs, Golden, Troy, and
Chaucer reflecting his fascination for medieva l illuminated manuscripts.
Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement were the seminal influences behind the
later Art Nouveau style.
Although not a movement as such Art Nouveau reached its zenith in the early
years of the 20th Century in many countries. It began as a reaction against the
horrors of mass production, aiming to reintroduce the skills and craftsman ship
that were fast dyin g out. In fine art by creating fantastical forms in
mythical landscapes it rebelled against the striving for naturalism of the
Impressionists. The essence of Art Nouveau was line - the curvilinear line,
sinuous and extended.
Return To The Top Of The Page
This approach rejected the order of the straight line and right angles in
favour of more natural movement. The emphasis was on decorative pattern and
flatness devoid of perspective. It can be seen as a synthesis of European art,
Viking and Celtic influenc es and Japanese wood block print with graphical
applications in posters, advertising, typography, books, crafts, building
design and the decorative arts - tableware, porcelain, glass, furniture,
ceramics and jewellery. The name came from a shop in Paris (1895) called La
Maison de l'art Nouveau.
Other notable English designers of this period included Arthur Mackmurdo,
Aubrey Beardsley who produced sinuous black and white book covers and
illustrations, and Charles Ricketts who founded the Vale Press in (1896).
Ricketts designed his own fonts, init ials, and borders for the books he
produced.
In France Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard and Alphonse Mucha designed coloured
lithographic posters famous for their undulating linear elements and elaborate
"whiplash" style of pattern.
Some of this stylistic revival was inspired in part by a growth in nationalism.
As such Art Nouveau percolations had many regional variations. The revival of
interest in early Celtic Art became an important influence on the Glasgow
School, in the work o f the most renowned architect and designer Charles Rennie
Mackintosh. Mackintosh was more restrained in style. This set him apart from
his contemporaries. He was a major influence in European avant-garde graphics
and the beginning of the machine aesthetic , a tough new look which formed the
basis of later Bauhaus design.
The Modernist avant-garde in the visual arts catalysed modern graphic design
early in the 20th Century. Cubism broke many of the old visual rules and
invented a whole new visual aesthetic. The anarchic movement of Dada was as
inventive as it was subversiv e and rule breaking in collage, montage,
concerts, poetry, typography and graphical art. Revolutionary Russian
abstraction was shockingly minimal and modern - a deliberate cleansing of old
decadent ornamentation. The boldness of Dada, Futurist and Russian
Constructionist design inspired the ideas the Bauhaus movement of the 1920's
and 1930's. The turbulence and violence of World War 1 and the Russian
Revolution completely broke with Art Nouveau, and swept away the old 19th
Century styles.
Return To The Top Of The Page
The early years of Bauhaus were folksy and crafty but moved towards the clean
modern machine look which attempted to merge art and industry. In contrast to
the Art Nouveau movement the Weimar Bauhaus art school proclamation (1919)
declared "Let us create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinction
which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist.
Together, let us conceive and create the new building of the future, which will
embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will
rise one day toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the symbol
of a new faith." The order of the Bauhaus machine aesthetic, (seen in the
architecture of Walter Gropius) was of asymmetry, basic rectangular form with
no decoration and balance by contrast. Retaining only essential elements, heavy
lines, circles and rectangles were employed . Good examples of the graphic were
the Sans-Serif Type Faces in the commercial world.
Away from the avant-garde the perfection of engraving and printing technology
meant that pictorial designs became more complex, but as well became poorer in
quality. It was not until the 1920's that trademark designers were capable of
achieving a clarity of form and simplicity of message which would elevate their
work above that of ordinary drawing. Foremost in this shift in direction was
the promotion of good design for the first two decades of this century. In
Britain this was championed as "good design is good for business" by Frank
Pick. As managing director of the Underground Group of Companies, he ranked
publicity as an integral "public face" to the organisation, and the pictorial
poster was the key method of publicity. In 1916 Pick hired the talent ed
calligrapher Edward Johnston to design a completely new alphabet for London
Transport. Originally intended as a poster typeface, it was quickly adopted for
all official London Transport communications. Johnston redesigned the
Underground symbol in 1935 , adapting the wheel mark of the original General
Omnibus Company into the symbol still in use today.
Advertising agencies recognised the positive impact on sales which clarity in
design could achieve. Sadly most trademark designers worked in anonymity as
staff or freelance artists in the employ of job printers and advertising
agencies. Trademark designs emanating from Britain during the 1920's did not
attain the level of severity of their German counterparts. In part reflecting
the difference between the two societies. British symbols are best described as
humane. While German designers influenced by the Bauhaus movement emphasised
form, British designers stressed content.
Return To The Top Of The Page
Typography gained a new lease on life early in 20th Century. Piet Zart a Dutch
interior, industrial and graphic designer was one of the pioneers in the field
of typography. He was inspired by Dada and De Stijl movements. Typographers of
the Bauhaus develo ped new styles. Herbet Bayer head of Bauhaus typography and
printing workshops 1925-1928 only used sans-serif, like his Universal alphabet
that later did away with capital letters- a single case of geometric form.
Other notable typographic designers were Paul Renner Futura, Eric Gill, Gill
Sans, where simple geometric shapes and the use of primary colours were seen to
be the only appropriate means of expression in the age of the machine.
Between the wars Art Deco was the exciting new movement in the "decorative
arts" and design which again swept away the elaborate ornamentation of
preceding centuries and replaced it with a stunning simplicity of line. Art
Deco reached its peak between the two world wars. Previous ages had drawn
inspiration from the past, this movement of the 1920's and 1930's was inspired
by the present and the future. Art Deco was seen as the embodiment of the steam
age, the machine age.
Return To The Top Of The Page
Its name Art Deco was derived from the Exposition des Arts Dйcoratifs et
Industriels held in Paris in 1925. Not everything on display at this exposition
would now be described as Art Deco today. The term more aptly describes the
style that followed on imm ediately from the Art Nouveau period at the end of
the 19th Century.
Art Deco was a style that spread through every aspect of daily life between the
wars. Every thing from the arts and crafts used the new sensibility, whether it
was a cinema, or a design for a radio set or a new motor car. Historians look
back between the wars to find examples of such artists as Picasso, Mondrian and
Kandinsky pushing the visual language beyond the boundaries of a stale
academicism. Surrealism, Cubism and Expressionism were the coherent styles of
the period, but no Art Deco style of painti ng ever existed. However "graphic
arts" in particular, Art Deco posters were the first fully developed examples
of a sophisticated understanding of the advantages and idiosyncrasies of the
world of advertising. This was hardly surprising as the growth of the
advertising industry and the medium of the poster design were inseparable. Art
Deco, the style of the consumer age was applied with great success to the
promotion of all the new consumer items, the gramophone, radio set, motor car,
aeroplane, ocean-g oing liner, house hold appliances and Hollywood movies.
The one lasting theme and motif that ran throughout the Art Deco poster and
illustration was that of the modish, chic, self-possessed and highly energetic
woman, modern in every sense of the word. Two great Art Deco poster designers
were Paul Collins and Cassandre. Both produced outstanding posters advertising
rail travel and luxury liner voyages. Cassandre's most famous single work was
the poster of the Normandie. The prow of the ship pushes forward out of the
picture as the majestic giant dwarfs the sma ll tug beneath it, suggesting to
the viewer that the Normandie certainly had strength and elegance. The poster
masterpiece for Fritz Lang's movie was Metropolis one of the best examples of
bold Exoressionist graphic design.
The common ground that all designers of this period shared was simplicity, the
use of a bold image and a clear legible typeface that got the message across at
a single glance.
Return To The Top Of The Page
The expressive nature of publicity during the 1930's, the decade of Art Deco
and economic depression can be attributed in part to the migration of fine
artists to into the service of industry. Due to the adverse economy, painters,
sculptors, and print mak ers sought work in the design professions. This era,
prior to England's involvement in World War 11, is characterised by a blurring
of the distinctions between fine and commercial art. As a result the graphic
imagery emanating from the 1930's was notable for its remarkable strength and
competency. Technically the 1930's saw the invention of Xerography, inkless
printing, the fore-runner of the current photo copier.
The rise of National Socialism in Germany and Fascism in Italy culminating in
World War 11 obliterated all avant-garde graphics and typography. Everything
went back to "retrospective" styling, the perceived strength in national
harmony. In Germany the Naz is romanticised a medieval revival of German Gothic
whilst in Italy Roman Classicalism was revered and imposed.
As industry recovered from the Second World War so the demand for printed
material rose to new heights. The post war era saw the rise of wealth and
consumerism in America in stark contrast to the coupon-ruled Britain and
damaged, demoralised Europe. The m ultiplying mass of business communications
and packaging added to the growth in consumer publishing. The USA led the way
as far as design is concerned. This was due to the country's advanced attitude
towards industrial and business organisation and to the presence there of a
wealthy mass market eager to consume its exciting new products. The 1950's saw
the rise of the American School of Graphic Impressionism characterised by an
attempt to use popular imagery in fine art. Swiss-style rationalism was domina
nt in advertising for Helvetica, Univers (in four weights), Optima and
Palatino. Photo setting made "hot-metal" obsolete as film imitated the
operation of type setting in hot metal thus accelerating production.
The 1960's are often characterised by the use of "cold type" referring to the
technology of photo-setting processes being established in the printing
industry. The late 1950's saw a rush towards numerous photo composition
machines with unpredictable chang es. This forced the consumer to accept some
loss of the finer qualities of hot metal for price and other non aesthetic
reasons. All of this was encouraging for those seeking novelty but dispiriting
for those concerned with traditional detail. Poor fit of letters and ugly
letterforms began to appear, fed by foundries and printers who expected to
generate a whole range of point sizes from a single matrix.
Other technological advances that affected graphic design included the launch
in 1961 by IBM of the Selectric golfball type writer, which offered an office
machine with the capability of changing its characters to a different face and
size. Also in 1961 the introduction of "dry" transfer lettering by Letraset, a
clean simple lettering system that had immediate appeal to graphic designers
paved the way for the desktop publishing systems of today. Letraset's library
of faces soon grew, taking licences from original foundries.
Return To The Top Of The Page
The quick success of dry transfer lettering led to a sense of fun in type face
design, creating special effects through distortion and trickery, by cutting or
tearing type to produce sci-fi effects, shivering typefaces like Alaska,
Arthritis, Narcotic etc . Rules about the relationship between type and image
were challenged, conventions about using or not using certain kinds of
typefaces were abandoned. Fantastic design break throughs were promoted through
the cinema with classics such as the credits for t he James Bond series. The
counter culture of the 1960's, particularly rock music developed its own
graphic communications. Under ground magazines, notably Oz, challenged
legibility in their illustrative collages of text, photography and striking use
of pr ocess colour. It was the posters of San Francisco music scene that set
the pace and took the psychedelic expressiveness furthest. The styling of these
posters was a rejection of the straightjacket establishment values of type.
Neville Brody a British grap hic designer used Apple MacintoshT computers and
digital typography to develop in Britain, a design style now known as the "Punk
Movement". His work for the The Face magazine, using low-resolution type faces,
deconstructivism became popular in the 1980's. Parallel to this movement was
the space race between the USA and The USSR, epitomised by the fashion for
apparently machine readable lettering, OCR-A, OCR-B, EI 3B and Letraset's
Countdown.
The earliest electronic digital computers were in operation around the 1940's.
Computerised graphic technology was developed in the early 1950's, but it was
not really artwork but mostly computer aided design and manufacture used in
such situations as fli ght simulators and scans of the internal anatomy of
human bodies. The first artistic experiments with computers took place in early
1960's. Most of these creations were the work of scientists, not artists, which
led to a more technical than artistic style .
During the 1960's computers began to have an impact on graphic design by
offering systems programmed to assist with justification of setting, and using
memories that can summon up an image on a cathode ray tube (screen) as
reference. But reliance on this early system brought problems. The operators
were unable to control spacing and word breaks that a good compositor in
hot-metal could have supplied earlier. Never the less hot metal was ousted by
the effects of lower costs and the convenience of cold type .
Return To The Top Of The Page
In the 1970's a technological revolution was bursting onto the typographic
scene as mentioned above in the form of the computer. It was affecting every
one, from designers to type manufacturers. The earliest computer based
typesetters were a hybrid of pho tocomposition and, and by the 1980's pure
digital output. None of these early machines handled graphics well and each
machine had their own font formats. The 1970's resolved the aridity of computer
design solutions by collaborating with professional artists, especially for the
rapidly growing 3-D environments. By the 1980's many partially and fully
animated graphics and films containing hyper-realistic co mputer animation of
complexly detailed models were produced.
By the late 1980's the development of desktop publishing changed the face of
the graphic and printing industry world wide. At the same time 'Post ScriptT
emerged as the de facto standard for digital typesetting, due mainly to its
inclusion in the Apple La serwriterT printer and its ability to handle graphics
well. Apple MacintoshT computers with their WYSIWYG (what you see is what you
get) display, and Aldus/AdobeT's PagemakerR , the first desktop publishing
programme, the ground work was laid for the curr ent computer-based typesetting
domination. The digital computer technology has changed the face of graphic
design forever.
The availability of such programmes as FreehandR, IllustratorR, FontographerR,
IkarusR, and PhotoshopR, developed specially for graphic design, has expanded
the world of graphics and type design from a few original graphic design houses
and type foundries to a burgeoning number of new digital font manufacturers and
graphic designers.
To sum up computers have had the most recent and profound effect on graphic
design. Simplifying the most tedious processes, like page layout issues, eg
justification, inserting columns, headings, editing and a variety of typefaces
to choose from. Digital format lends itself to editing and flexibility. Cheap
desktop publishing is now a very real option.
The Internet, developed in the 1960's and 70's,was originally based on the US
Military and academic networks. The Net comprises of a vast number of computers
of all shapes and sizes connected through a massive network. Today the Internet
runs commercially , connecting most of the world's universities, businesses,
corporations and millions of individuals worldwide. Tim Berners Lee is
generally credited with being the architect of the World Wide Web. He and
Robert Caillan authored a design document proposing the framework for a
distributed hyper-text system. In a little over six years the Web has developed
into one of the largest "libraries" of information the world has known.
The rapid unparalleled growth of the Internet has made it one of the mediums
with the most potentially effective communication tools in the future. The
Internet signals the most social and economic changes since the Industrial
Revolution. It is estimated that by the year 2000 there will between 2 and 10
billion images on-line.
Graphic Design is really a product of the 20th Century, and has been heavily
influenced by advances in photography, colour reproduction and computer aided
design. The future of graphic design is exciting and completely open ended.
c Mary Jane Griggs, October 1998
Return To The Top Of The Page
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
=== Cut ===
:-)
____Yours sincerely, Michael Koninin__ICQ: 26606808_______________________