1. art and entertainment
2. visual art and design
3. design
4. graphic design

A Brief History of
Graphic Design
Cindy Royal, Ph.D
Associate Professor
Texas State University
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
[email protected]
www.cindyroyal.com
www.onthatnote.com
cindytech.wordpress.com
twitter.com/cindyroyal
facebook.com/cindyroyal
Zeitgeist
• Zeitgeist – the spirit of our time; the
cultural trends and tastes that are
characteristic of a given era.
• How would you describe the Zeitgeist of
the various periods: 60s, 70s, 90s,
modern time?
Writing and Alphabets
• Early human markings in Africa – 35,000 B.C. –
4000 B.C
Animals, geometric signs, pictographs –
elementary sketches to represent things;
ideographs- images represent ideas
• Evolution to writing, symbols for spoken
language
• Why is writing important?
• 2800 B.C. left to right, top to bottom format
• Sharp stylus to triangle-shaped led to cuneiform
writing (Sumerians)
Writing and Alphabets
• Egyptians –hieroglyphics
Used by priests, secretive, Rosetta Stone proved that
hieroglyphics were writing.
• Papyrus and writing – paper-like substance made
from plants
• Illustrated manuscripts – both words
and pictures used to illustrate
concepts and communicate information.
Rosetta Stone
Writing and Alphabets
• Chinese calligraphy – 1800 B.C.
• Paper 105 A.D. – natural substances wet and beaten
to pulp.
– Relief Printing – seals and stamps – 200 A.D.
– Inked rubbings
• Moveable type – first used in Asian cultures, but was
not widespread due to size of alphabet
• Greek alphabet 1000 B.C.
• Roman or Latin Alphabet 75 B.C.
Printing and Typography
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•
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Typography – printing through the use of
independent, movable and reusable bits of
metal
Economic and multiple production of
alphabetic communication
1422 - 122 manuscripts in the library at
Cambridge
Gutenberg printer – around 1450
– Style of letter – compete with
calligraphers by imitating their style
– Each character in font had to be
engraved into steel bar to make a
punch
– Type mold – particular alloy with perfect
composition for to hold up to thousands
of impressions, but soft enough to mold
– Ink – composition, thick, tacky ink
– Sturdy press capable of sufficient force
to pressure ink from type to paper.
Gutenberg Bible
• 42-line form – 180 copies were made,
about 60 still exist
Printing
• Incunabula – cradle or period of early printing through the
15th century.
• Printing spreads through Europe
• Resisted in some quarters – threatened livelihood of
scribes, type was inferior, libraries insisted on originals
• Reduced price to a fraction of manuscript
• Social, religious, and economic upheavals, most influential
advance until mass communications
• Spreading ideas
• Decline of illiteracy
• Rise of learning, education
• Same time as Renaissance painting
• Formulate own interpretations rather than relying on
interpretations of religious leaders, led to Reformation
Renaissance Graphic Design
• Development of printing in Italy, Venice
• Wider letterforms, lighter tone, even
texture
• Wildflowers and vines
• Borders as elements
• Title page and page numbers
• Censorship 1500s
• France – Geoffrey Tory (1480-1533) –
open, lighter style, Pot Casse
trademark, initials in squares with
meticulous designs
• Claude Garamond – lighter typefaces,
clarity of font, elimination of Gothic style
Dawning of Typography
• Quality of printing due to mathematical
processes, fewer calligraphic properties.
• William Caslon ( 1692-1766) – Old Style - 1700s,
used solely by English printing; Ben Franklin
introduced in colonies, legible, sturdy, friendly to
the eye.
Typography
• John Baskerville –
1706-1775 – wide
margins and liberal
use of space,
smooth, glossy
paper, transitional
between Old Style
and Modern design.
Typography
• Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1819)
Italian – typefaces inspired by
classical forms of Greek and
Roman art, designed with more
mathematical, geometric
appearance, thin strokes, straight
hairline serifs, open, simple page
designs. criticized for loss of
“antique virtue.”
• Francoise Ambroise Didot – family
dynasty of printers 1730-1840
• Both thin and fat styles,
condensed and expanded font
styles
• Firmin Didot – stereotype printing
– made longer press runs possible
Typeface Periods
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Old Style - a typeface (based on an 18th century design) distinguished
by irregularity and slanted ascender serifs and little contrast between
light and heavy strokes (Garamond/Caslon)
Transitional - fonts that are based on more recent designs than the old
style fonts (Baskerville/Times Roman)
Modern - based on designs developed in the 19th century or later. The
moderns have a solid appearance due to their vertical stress. They tend
to have more ``character'' or ``attitude'' than the old styles and
transitionals, but still carry a certain amount of dignity and formality.
They are not suited for writing long passages, but they are useful for
adding character to a piece of writing (Bodoni)
Slab Serif - a certain class of font whose serifs look like slabs ( e.g. flat
lines or blocks ) and not hooks; serifs are simple and strong (New
Century Schoolbook)
Sans Serif - fonts without serifs; good for headlines; work well on
monitors (Arial)
Display – wacky, novelty, good visual, poor legibility; advertising
developed; limited use; attention getting (Jokerman)
Typography in the Industrial
Age
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
Shift in political power away from aristocracy, toward
manufacturers, merchants, working class. Scientific knowledge
applied to manufacturing processes.
French and American Revolutions led to greater public
education and literacy

Decline of handicrafts- specialization of factory system

Graphic design separated into design and production factions
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Advertising and posters - not same as book printing; abstract
visual form
Improvements to printing processes, converted to high speed
printing operation, steam-powered
Improvements to paper-making
Typography in the Industrial Age
• Mechanizing typography beyond setting type by hand (timeconsuming)
• Linotype – Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854-99) – Typewriter like
keys, released a matrix that was put in a line and filled with
melted lead, cast slug bearing raised type 1886, cost of
newspapers reduced, pages increased, circulations increased,
periodicals Saturday Evening Post and Colliers
• Led to age of mass communication
• Three-dimensional
• Depth of shading and perspective,
outlines, reversing
San-serif
• William Caslon IV 1816
Photography
• Joseph Niepce –France - first image of nature by light, not by
hand 1826
• Process perfected by Louis Jacques Daguerre, 1839
• Daguerreotypes
• Image on copper plate, exposed to chemicals and light, very
sensitive process
• Image often reversed itself, improved by Englishman, Henry Fox
Talbot, who used negatives or reversed prints to make positives.
Photography
• Images in print – early images were woodblock imprints
• Artwork onto metal presses
• Halftone and color separation – changed visual
appearance of printed page
• Matthew Brady – Civil War photographer, idea of
documentary photography
Freedmen on the Canal Bank in Richmond
Graphic Movements
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Victorian Era – lithography for printing
images, elaborate typefaces
Arts and Crafts Movement – influences
of art and architecture
William Morris effect; private press
movement
Art Nouveau – turn of the century,
English and French
20th Century Design
• Frank Lloyd Wright and Glasgow School
• Cubism, Picasso, challenged natural
look of Renaissance
Picasso - Reservoir at Horta - 1909
Futurism
• Words as images; bold use of typography;
writing as visual form
• Manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti,
Italian Poet
Filippo Marinetti, Mountains + Valleys + Streets x Joffre, 1915
Dadaism
• Rejection of traditional; mocking society;
horrors of war, blind faith in
technological processes.
John Heartfield - Adolf the Superman - 1935
Surrealism
• More real than the real world; naturalists
of the imaginary; Max Ernst and
Salvador Dali
Dali - Remorse or Sphinx Embedded in the Sand, 1931
Expressionism
• Concern with feelings and emotions in visual communicationsempathy for poor/human condition
Paul Klee
Fish Magic
1925
• Influence on photography, exposures and filters
• War posters
• Art deco – 20s and 30s
Other Influences
• Piet Mondrian, born in 1872,
is often called the father of
graphic design. Although he
was a fine artist (not a graphic
designer) his use of grids
inspired the basic structure of
the modern advertising layout
known also as the grid
system, used commonly today
by graphic designers.
Bauhaus design and after
• Concern for the entity rather than
ornamentation - an art and
architecture school in Germany
that operated from 1919 to 1933;
functionality and efficiency
• American influence – immigration,
New Deal, flight from Facism of
Bauhaus, WWI
• Post-war consumer culture
The Age of Information
• The New York School –- focus
on unique and new – post
European influence - Paul Rand
– logos ABC, IBM, Enron
• Editorial design progress, large
pages, photographs, and design
components, Life, Look,
Saturday Evening Post – move
to more specialized publications
– 1960s
Changes in Advertising
• Doyle Dane Bernbach- talk
intelligently to consumers
1950s – fusion of word and
image
• 1950s – letterforms as
images, visual properties of
words or their organization in
space
• Corporate Identity and Visual
Symbols – advertising,
communications, packaging,
vehicles, signage – visual
identification system
Modern Imagery
• MTV – logo design was changeable, multiple
forms, different than previous idea of identity,
animation, illustration, photography
• Conceptual imagery in contrast to
photography to evoke emotion, expression of
our time, iconic and symbolic, rather than
narrative.
Postmodern Design
• Multiperspectival, reflects an end to modernism,
questions tenets of modernism
• 1970s, intuitive and personal
• Influenced by postmodern architecture, industrial
design, interior design
Digital Revolution
• Removed specialist nature of graphic
design; greater control over design
and production process
• Growth of cable and satellite – more
options
• Apple, Adobe, and Aldus,
• 1984, 1st generation Macintosh,
bitmapped graphics, represented by
pixels, mouse
• 1984 Ad - http://www.applehistory.com/
Digital Revolution
• Early fonts dictated by matrix of dots on early monitors
• PostScript, not bitmapped, but electronic information on
how to draw, generated as outlines and then filled.
• Aldus Pagemaker, first layout program for personal
computer
• 1990 Macintosh II – color, increase in companies doing
graphic design, increase in untrained also
• QuarkXpress and Photoshop/Illustrator, later InDesign
• Interactive Media and Internet
• Problems with html and browsers; fear of a decline in
design
• Ability to add multimedia, animation, instant updating,
access; now interactivity
• Nature of authorship, professional designers, others
designing within their profession, those who do it as a
hobby, etc.
References
• A History of Graphic Design by Phillip Meggs
• http://www.linotype.com/7-297/fontdesigners.html - Font Designers at
Linotype
• http://www.wtamu.edu/~bcaruthers/history.ht
ml - A Brief History of Graphic Design