History Of
Graphic Design
Evolution of the Written Word
15,000 BCE -1,5000 CE 4,000 BCE
MESOPOTAMI
15,000 BCE CAVE DRAWINGS Many years ago, humans used drawings as visual communication. They used a palette of pigments mixed with fat to paint these images onto cave walls. One form of this imagery was a pictograph. Pictographs were an elementary picture or sketch representing the thing depicted. Similarly a petroglyph is a carved or scratched sign or simple figure on rock. With economic progress, technological and cultural developments, these cave drawings represented the beginning of written communication.
Messopotamia was “The land between rivers,” which is known as the cradle of civilization. Sumerians were those who settled in the lower part of the Fertile Crescent. The Sumerians who settled in the lower part of the Fertile Crescent developed cuneiform, a method of writing in which a triangular-tipped stylus was pushed into the clay and formed a series of wedgeshaped strokes rather than a continuous line drawing. Cuneiform is a form of ideographs, which are symbols that represents an idea or concept. Over many centuries this writing system evolved.
1,400 BCE
Roman letterforms, or majuscules started out as all caps.This was very hard to read because of the lack of space between the words. Minuscule letter forms were small or lowercase letterform. Uncials differ because they are rounded, freely drawn majuscule letters.
1,100 BCE
LATIN ALPHABET
The Roman alphabet originated from the Etruscans. Later it was made into a twenty-one letter alphabet that was pronounced with phonetic sounds. The Latin alphabet would become the main writing system in use in the Western world and the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. The fall of Rome brings on the Medeival Era. During this time almost all knowledge learned up to this point was lost; writing, reading, libraries, etc.
For 300 years the knowledge of writing was kept alive mainly in the remote outposts of religious cloisters and retreats in the form of illuminated manuscripts. Illuminated manuscripts is the term used for all decorated and illustrated handwritten books produced from the late Roman Empire They were called illuminated because of the vibrant luminosity of gold leaf, which reflected light from the pages of handwritten books, gave the sensation of the page literally being illuminated.
PHOENICIAN ALPHABET
The Phoenician alphabet was a North Semitic writing. It was an early alphabetic system of twenty-two characters written from leftto right.
780 CE ASIAN INFLUENCE
GREEK ALPHABET
EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS
The Egyptians retained their picture-writing system, called hieroglyphics where as the Sumerians’ pictographic writing evolved into abstract cuneiform. The Rosetta Stone was discovered August of 1799. Napoleon’s troops were digging a foundation in the Egyptian town of Rosetta. There they unearthed a black slab that had two languages and three scripts written on it: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic script, and Greek. hieroglyphics had been undecipherable up until this point.
3,100 BCE
ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS
The Greek alphabet evolved from the Phoenician, or North Semitic alphabet. The Greeks changed five consonants to vowels and applied a geometric structure to the uneven Phoenician characters. Through a standardized system of horizontal, vertical, curved, and diagonal strokes, the Greeks achieved visual order and balance. Boustrophedon, (from the Greek “to plow a field with an ox,”), was a writing method developed by the Greeks in which every other line reads in the opposite direction. Boustrophadeon was not always in use with Greek writing.
750 BCE
The eastern hemisphere was much more advanced with their knowledge of papermaking, printmaking and letter form. One accomplisment they achieved was relief printing. Relief printing is when the spaces around an image on a flat surface are cut away, the remaining raised surface is inked, and the inked image is transferred to the paper. Asia used movable type but with single characters. They were made individually in a mixture of clay and glue. Then, they were arranged side by side to compose full lines of text.
105 CE
Evolution of Movable Type 1450 CE
TYPOGRAPHIC PRINTING Printing was introduced by China with a technique called relief printing. Johann Gutenberg invented the first successful method of letterpress printing around 1450 in Germany. This was done by casting metal type and then printing the type on a press. His first large scale print job was the Gutenberg bible. It was printed in black ink with textura type. This method of printing was used until the 1960s. The invention of Gutenberg’s printing press caught on like wildfire. Printing firms rapidly populated Europe particularly throughout Italy and Venice.
1439 CE
MOVABLE TYPE
Movable type was responsible for the end of the Medieval Era, and the rise of the Renaissance and the Early Modern Age. It resulted in the rapid spread of knowledge and literacy in addition to making printed publications available to the general public. The invention of movable type and the printing press ranks as one of the most important advances in civilization. During the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococco period a number of important changes would occur in typeface design, page layout, ornaments, illustration, and even the total design of the book.
1400-1700 CE
1496 CE
1439-1798 CE
OLD STYLE
Old style: Garalde, Renaissance. Typeface designers naturally began to refine the letterforms gradually moving away from the humanis style and more towards a cleaner easier to read letter style. Francesco Griffo created a more authentic typeface in 1496 called Bembo. It was so successful that it is still in existence today. Claude Garamond, another famous type designer, created beautiful typefaces that created a greater contrast between thick and thin At the same time as Bodoni’s innovations strokes, bracketed serifs, and an axis stressed in Italy, the Didot family of France was slightly to the left. beginning to build a legacy of printing publishing, printmaking and typefounding. Both Bodoni and Didot pushed each other as rivals to get a perfect typeface. Didot’s letterforms were lighter and the serifs were unbracketed. These modern fonts were great for headlines but hard to read for large areas of text.
1783 CE DIDOT
1465 CE HUMANIST
The first Roman type called Humanist appeared during the 1460s and 1470s. It is also referred to as Venetian because it was developed by a Venice printer. Nicolas Jensen (c. 1420–1480) is credited with developing the first true Roman typeface. Jenson’s type, while based on geometric Roman letterforms continued to retain the humanist feel of the hand and broad nib and angle of the written letter. He also spaced the letters and words more evenly on the page.
MODERN (ROCOCO) While more transitional styles were being developed in England, an impressive ‘Modern’ style type was emerging in Italy and France. Giambattista Bodoni evolved and redesigned typefaces which resulted in a new category of Roman type identified as Modern. The serifs became hairlines that formed sharp right angles with upright strokes.
TYPE CLASSIFICATIONS
During this timespan, typeface design would drastically change and 4 type classifications of Roman serif letterforms would emerge that would remain until this day as the standard system for type classification. Humanist (Venetian), Old Style (Garalde, Renaissance), Transitional (NeoClassical), and Modern
1798 CE
1760 CE
TRANSITIONAL
The typefaces of this period are called Transitional, as they represent the initial departure from the characteristics of Old Style classification into modern typefaces. Transitional typefaces are precise and refined. John Baskerville refined Old Style into the Transitional style by creating wider letterforms with more contrast between thick and thin strokes. His letters possessed a new elegance and lightness.
The Industrial Revolution
1800-1890 CE
1836 CE BEGINNING OF ADVERTISING
1827 CE WOOD TYPE
1800 CE
WHAT WAS IT?
The industrial revolution influenced and shaped the beginnings of the graphic design field. By the 20th century enough innovations and technological advancements were in place for the profession of graphic design to make a lasting impact on the western world. These advancements took place during the Industrial Revolution. This invention of the spinning machine set in motion the inevitable progress of humankind and our ultimate dependence upon machines to replace human labor. As a result, factories and cheap production increased. People moved from agrarian life to the city life.
The need for bigger prints for billboards and such, posed a printing problem. This problem was solved in 1827, when Darius Wells invented a special wood drill which was capable of cutting letters on type-high-endcut wood blocks. Wood type was faster and cheaper to produce than metal type, and for the first time, this allowed designers to custom design typefaces to fit their product. This was the beginning of graphic design or customized design.
The industrial revolution and the mass production of cheap goods also ignited consumer revolution. By the end of the seventeenth century, everyone demanded consumer goods that indicated their status. With this, a need for advertising these consumer goods increased. Prints were now being made for newspapers, posters, billboards, labels and broadsides. They were no longer limited to books and religious documents. Advertising progressed from typographic wood type posters and full color lithography to highly stylized look of the art nouveau period.
1890 CE
NEW TYPEFACES
Decorative fonts and new fonts were being created. The creation of ‘fat-faces’ began in the early 19th century by designer Robert Thorne. Fat-face type style is characterized as Roman typeface with a higher contrast in stroke weight. Another invention of the 19th century was the typeface, Egyptian (slab serif/antique) which was created by Vincent Figgins. Contrast was reduced, the serifs were thinner, and the x-height was increased for legibility at smaller sizes.
German printer, Friedrich Koenig had plans for a steam-powered printing press. His press used a steam engine and printed 300 sheets per hour. He was paid to improve his press and developed a double cylinder steam-powered press that was capable of printing 1,1000 impressions per hour.
1812 CE
KEY INNOVATIONS PRINTING
The hand fed Gutenberg printing press was still in use 300 years after it was invented. During the Industrial Revolution, inventors tried making mechanical innovations that would hopefully increase the hand press’ efficiency. Printing presses were influential to graphic designers where thousands of William Caslon IV was the first type designer posters, flyers and signs could be produced to invent sans-serif type, which was initially per hour where printing was used primarily called Two Lines English. It was used to offset for religious documents and books. It fueled the boldness of the fat faces and Egyptians being people’s imaginations, and offered them used for headlines. Sans-serif fonts would not information and entertainment. take off in popularity until the 20th century.
INVENTION OF SANS-SERIF
RISE OF DISPLAY FONTS With the need for more casual printing projects, people were looking for a typeface that stood out to the viewer. From this, a display font was created. This is a font that can be used in a headline but cannot be used in a block of text as it would be illegible. Then the more traditional font could be used for the subtitles, or less important information.
FRIEDRICH KOENIG
1816 CE
Evolution of Printing
1803 CE
PAPERMAKING The industrial revolution influenced the printmaking world drastically. Due to the mass production of prints, large amounts of paper were also needed. Paper manufacturing was invented by Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier in 1803. This machine poured a suspension of fiber and water into a thin stream above a vibrating wire-mesh conveyer belt which produced an unending sheet of paper.
1815 CE
WILLIAM COWPER William Cowper invented a printing press using curved plates wrapped around a cylinder. This machine was capable of making 2,400 impressions per hour and could print 1,200 double sided. Cowper and his partner were commissioned, and created a four cylinder steam powered press that utilized the curved stereotyped plates as well. This machine was capable of printing 4,000 double-sided sheets per hour.
1840 CE
1796-1886 CE
CHROMOLITHOGRAPY This is the technique of “printing in colors�. The printing industry intoxicated the world with lush colorful hues. By the 1800s, the method of printing images was either wood engraved block or chromolithography. Chromolithography was great for producing vivid realistic colorful prints. It was not a method that could be used in printing publications like books or newspapers. Around the 1930s chromolithography would disappear in favor of the photographic process but the method of separating colors and printing in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black is still in use today on offset presses.
1886 CE
1826 CE
HELIOGRAPHY
Heliography was a method used by Frenchman Joseph Niepce,where he coated a sheet of pewter with bitumen of Judea that hardened when exposed to light. He then oiled a drawing that made it transparent. Later he applied it to the sheet, and exposed it to sunlight creating a contact print. However, the exposure took several days which can be seen as the light from the sun lights up both sides of the building.
DAGUERREOTYPE
LINOTYPE
Typesetting still slowed down the entire printing operation. Typesetting was slow tedious work where every letter of every words had to be set individually and in reverse order. In 1886, Ottmar Mergenthaler developed a typesetting machine called a Linotype. This replaced hours and hours of setting type by hand. When one of the ninety keys were pressed on the Linotype, a matrix slid down a tube and into position, which formed one line of type. Then, hot metal was poured over the matrices and a line of type was produced. The type could be melted down and reused.
1833 CE
Louis Daguerre further developed the photographic process in 1833. He used a highly polished silver-plated copper sheet that was sensitized by placing it, silver side down, over a container of iodine crystals. The plate was placed in the camera and exposed to light coming through the lens to produce a latent image.
1796 CE
LITHOGRAPHY
A printing process, called lithography, achieved realistic results was invented by Aloys Senefelder. The lithographic process was when one printed from a flat surface instead of having a plate with a raised surface.
1830 CE
CAMERA OBSCURA Photography would be one of the greatest achievements and would open up new avenues for the fledgling graphic design industry. The camera obscura was a darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object onto a screen inside. This example is in the historical apparatus collection at Transylvania University, and is of the form used by William Henry Fox Talbot for his experiments with photography in the 1830s.
Evolution of Graphic Design
1850-1888 CE
1880-1910 CE
ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT
1850 CE MAGAZINES
Magazines launched the graphic design business. It began as cheap fast runs, but eventually developed into a main stay for designers. The Harper brothers-James, John, Wesley, and Fletcher became the largest printing and publishing firm in the world (1850). The printing and publishing firm started the Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, weekly newsmagazines, a women’s publication named Harper’s Bazar, and a publication for younger audiences. Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom ruled Thomas Nast was hired by Harper’s Weekly and illustrated deep-rooted social and during two thirds of the 19th century. The political concerns. Victorians sought to convey their strong moral and religious beliefs, optimism, and proper social conventions through their design aesthetic. The Victorian aesthetic used the Gothic period as an influence. Louis Prang was the most influential and popular illustrator and is considered the father of the Christmas Card.
A movement evolved in England that eventually swept across Europe and into the U.S. called the Arts and Crafts Movement. This movement brought on a reaction against the mass production of cheap and poorly designed products such as books, posters and typefaces. It was essentially a reaction against social, moral and artistic confusion of the Industrial Revolution. It was a resurrection of the classics as well as aesthetics and craftsmanship. Revival of book and publication design. Anti-Industrialism and anti-machinery. The philosophy behind the movement was based on the renewal of aesthetics and hand crafted pieces. It was started by two significant people, English writer, John Ruskin and artist William Morris.
Morris designed a book and typeface design and established the Kelmscott press. This was a private printing company dedicated to printing incunabula inspired books that were articulate and beautifully crafted with hand made papers and wood block illustrations.
1837-1901CE VICTORIAN ERA
1888 CE
BROWNIE CAMERA American, George Eastman, invents roll film and made photography available to the general population with his hand held Kodak camera, otherwise known as the brownie camera. This was unlike anything that had been available before because everyone had the power to create images. It came loaded with 100 exposures that needed to be sent back to the factory by processing and reloading once the roll was finished.
KELMSCOTT PRESS
1891CE
CENTURY GUILD
WILLIAM MORRIS Morris was artistically talented in many areas and while decorating his own home, he would discover and fall in love with Victorian products and furniture design. He began to assemble teams of craftsmen that eventually included furniture, cabinet makers, weavers, dyers, stained glass Designs of the Victorian Era focused more towards children fabricators, potters and tile makers. In 1861 especially with the invention of the toy book. This was a colorful he would establish the art-decorating firm picture book for preschool aged children. The design and content Morris, Marshall Faulkner and Company. of the children’s books changed from morals and lessons to This company provided beautiful, handpurely entertainment. Walter Crane was one of the earliest and crafted products and furnishings for homes. most influential designers of children’s picture books. Randolph Morris’s wallpaper designs were especially Caldecott designed illustrated books that caught the attention of ornate and intricate and would have lasting children worldwide. Kate Greenaway’s another children’s book appeal. designer, was well-structured and gracefully designed. She used white space and soft colors in her illustrations, and the children in her books influenced children’s fashions at the time.
TOY BOOKS
1886 CE
A group of young artists lead by Arthur Machmurdo, would band together to establish the Century Guild in London. The goal was to elevate design to its rightful place besides painting and sculpture as an artform. While the group was dedicated to featuring mostly medieval imagery they were also heavily influenced by Japanese art which was popular at the time in Europe. This group believed that the painter or designer of something as mundane as a flowerpot should have the same status as a famous painter. This concept wouldn’t be fully explored until the anti-art Dada movement of the early twentieth century.
1882 CE
Arts and Crafts Movement
1826-1930 CE
1930 CE
1890-1910
FALL OF THE ARTS AND Art Nouveau (Continued) Its popularity swept across Europe and America CRAFTS MOVEMENT The reason the movement ended was a bit of a philosphical paradox. Hand-labor was intensive and the end product was way too expensive for the working class to purchase. The movement influenced typography, and now, publications were designed with aesthetics in mind rather than just saving money. Over time, humans get tired of the same look and want something new.
1875 CE
ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS The two most influential contributors of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Germany were S.H. de Roos and Jan Van Krimpen. Their view on book design was purely typographic. De Roos was convinced that the typeface was the foundation of sound book design, and that it should be practical, beautiful, and easily readable. Van Krimpen felt the reader should never be conscious of the typography. He thought it should be more utilitarian and should be perfectly executed so that reading was pleasurable. While their book publications were less decorated, the goal was to not have the images interfere with legibility.
where each country would have its own name for it, and their own twist. Art nouveau’s identifying visual quality is an organic, plantlike line. It’s considered a ‘total’ art style encompassing all the design arts. It was also influenced by the vine and decorative borders of the Arts and Crafts movement, the rococo style, as well as the swirling forms of Vincent Van Gogh. these style and movements can be traced back to Japanese decorative art. Japanese art would mark the end of realism and the beginning of abstraction and the dawn of Modernism.
1895 CE
1890-1910 Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international decorative style that thrived roughly during the two decades between the turn of the century. The new style was a continuation of the English Arts and Crafts Movement that emphasized a return to handcraftsmanship, traditional techniques and relied heavily upon nature and organic forms.
English Art Nouveau
In England, the art nouveau movement was primarily concerned with graphic design and illustration. English art nouveau was also influenced by Gothic art and Victorian painting. Aubrey Beardsley was a key figure. He made use of a striking pen line, vibrant black-and-white work, and shockingly exotic imagery. He was born in England but moved to Paris and was said to have been inspired by Henri Toulouse LauTrec’s poster style.
1890-1910
Art Nouveau in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands, the book was one of the principal expressive mediums of Nieuwe Kunst. The work reflected a love of order and geometry. Some special qualities of the book’s design are unpredictability, eccentricity, openness, and innovation. Chris Lebeau and Jan Toorop, who was born in Java, were influenced by traditional crafts of the Dutch East Indies, such as the organic designs of batik.
ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT IN AMERICA
Bookkeeper Fredrick Goudy would lead the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States. He was inspired by the private press movement and opened The Village Press. After it was burned to the ground, he turned his energy towards designing typefaces and eventually designed 122 typefaces for the Lanston Monotype Company. He was most well known for his Goudy Old STyle typeface. It’s frequently used for packaging and advertising. Along with Frederick, William Addison Dwiggins, Albert Bruce Rogers, and Morris F. Benton were all influential during the Arts and Crafts Movement in America.
1890-1910
1890-1910
French Art Nouveau Beginning in Paris in 1881, a new French law lifted censorship restrictions which led to a booming poster industry. Jules Chéret was convinced that pictorial lithographic posters would replace the typographic letterpress posters. His works were influenced by scenes of Rococo frivolity. He created vivid poster ads for the cabarets, music halls, and theatres.
Graphic Design during WWI
1914-1918 CE
THE CENTRAL POWERS
THE POSTER GOES TO WAR
LUCIAN BERNHARD
1900-1930’s
TURN OF THE CENTURY
Bernhard reduced visual communication to just a single word and two matches. It was the beginning of a new form of simplistic language of shape and sign. He was very successful and for two decades continued with this approach to poster design. He designed over 300 packages for 66 products using simplistic elementary graphics.
The two opposing sides, The Allies, led by France, Great Britain and the U.S., versus the Central Power led by Austria, Hungary, and Germany would produce two radically distinct poster styles-from both a visual and emotional perspective. In AustriaHungary and Germany would create posters in the style of the Vienna Secessionists along with the simplicity of Bernhards’ Plakatstil. Words and images were integrated and the essence of the communication was conveyed by simplifying images into powerful shapes and patterns that held symbolic meaning.
Europe and the United States was about to enter a state of crisis, brought about by World War I. And at no other time in history would the graphic design industry play such an important role in helping to decide the fate of the world. Designers on both sides of the war would use posters as the main means of communication.
THE ALLIES
Many changes in the fine art world changed at the turn of the century including the direction of the graphic design industry. Modern Art Movements including Expressionism, Dada, Futurism, Cubism, Constructivism, and Surrealism swept across Europe and eventually into the United States. These movements affected imagery, color and typography of poster design.
LUDWIG HOHLWEIN
WAR PROPAGA
The war poster or propaganda was the most important and most available means of communicating to the people. During World War I (1914–1918), when radio and other electronic means of communication were not yet widespread, the poster served as a major communications tool for propaganda and visual persuasion: recruitment, boosting public morale to maintaining popular support for the war effort, fundraising to collect money to finance the war.
Hohlwein is from Munich, Germany. He would become the most prolific poster designer for the Central Powers. He applied more of a rich range of textures and decorative patterns. His work tended to straddle between the symbolic imagery of the Central powers imagery and the Allies pictorial imagery. Hohlwein’s career would continue on and would be commissioned to design propaganda posters for the emerging Nazi party and Adolf Hitler. Hohlweins’ Nazi posters reflected the triumphant superiority of the German Master Race and his posters would further develop a bold militaristic style of heavy forms and strong tonal contrast. Consequently, his reputation would be forever tarnished by his collaboration with the Nazis.
The Allies approach to propaganda was more illustrative, using literal imagery that emotionally tugged at the heartstrings of its people. British posters stress the need to protect traditional values. James Montgomery Flagg and Joseph Leyendecker would become two of the most prolific poster designers during the war for the US. Leyendecker would use popular imagery such as boy scouts and honor as visual symbols, or the Liberty clad in the flag to promote patriotism among Americans. He would go on to produce 322 covers for the Saturday Evening Post.
POST WWI POSTERS
“After WWI the nations of Europe and America sought a return to normalcy and prosperity ensued for the victorious Allies. Faith in the machine was at an all time high and cubist ideas about spatial organization and synthetic imagery inspired a new direction in pictorial imagery.” resource: Meggs
Pictorial Modernism
1900-1930 CE 1930 CE
AUSTIN COOPER Cooper made a direct application of cubism to graphic design in early twentieth-century England. In a series of three collage-inspired posters, he attempted to spark memories of the viewers’ earlier Continental visits by presenting fragments and glimpses of landmarks. His most well-known posters are purely geometric but effectively depict through square colors the warmer climate below during the winter and cooler temperatures below during the summer.
1920’s
ART DECO
The term Art Deco is used to identify the popular geometric works of the 20’-30’s. Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954). An American who emigrated to Europe to be amid the cutting edge of modern art, he showed how the ideas surrounding cubism and futurism could be used with strong communications impact in graphic design. Which can be seen in his first propaganda posters for Great Britain during WWI. For the next quarter century he continued to produce a steady stream of poster and would design 141 posters for the London Underground Transport.
1878-1935
KAZIMIR MALEVICH Kasimir Malevich founded a painting style of basic forms and pure color that he called suprematism. He believed the essence of the art experience was the perceptual effect of color and form. He created an elemental geometric abstraction that was new and totally non-objective. The visual form became the content, and expressive qualities developed from the intuitive organization of the forms and colors. He argued that art must remain an essentially spiritual activity, apart from the utilitarian needs of society. He and Wassily Kandinsky believed that art should not have a social or political role.
1923 CE
EL LISSITZKY
El Lissitzky would influence the course of graphic design. He developed a painting style that he called PROUNS, which introduced three-dimensional illusions that both receded (negative depth) behind the picture plane (naught depth) and projected forward (positive depth) from the picture plane. Lissitzky also effectively used montage and photomontage for complex communications messages. Lissitzky set a standard of excellence for the designer. His influence was widespread and enduring.
1895-1944
GUSTAV KLUTSIS
A.M. CASSANDRE
From 1923 until 1936, A.M. Cassandre revitalized French advertising art through a stunning series of posters. Cassandre’s bold, simple designs emphasize two dimensionality and are composed of broad, simplified planes of color. By reducing his subjects to iconographic symbols, he moved very close to synthetic cubism. His love of letterforms is evidenced by an exceptional ability to integrate words and images into a total composition. Cassandre achieved concise statements by combining telegraphic copy, powerful geometric forms, and symbolic imagery created by simplifying natural forms into almost pictographic silhouettes.
1890-1941
1917 CE
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION COMMUNISM
The Russians would absorb cubism and futurism and move onto new innovations. The avant-garde would coin their movement as cubo-futurism. They would experiment with typography, hand lettering, and printing on course papers due to the poverty of peasant society.
The master of propaganda photomontage referred to the medium as the art construction for socialism. He was convinced photo montage was the medium of the future and that it rendered all other forms of artistic realism obsolete. He would be arrested for his beliefs in 1938 under Stalin and die in the labor camps.
1920’s
CONSTRUCTIVISM The Constructivists called upon artist to stop producing useless things such as paintings, to break the umbilical cord connecting them to traditional art. Tectonics, texture and construction were the three principles of constructivism. Tectonics represents the unification of communist ideology with visual form, texture meant the nature of materials and constructions symbolized the creative process and laws of visual organization.
Modernist Era
1900-1950 CE
1950 CE
MODERNISM MOVEMENT IN THE US
1930’s
JAN TSCHICHOLD
Tschichold would assimilate and epitomize the Bauhaus and Russian Constructivist typography and new design concepts. And he explained them to a wide audience of printers, typesetters and designers. He designed the Die Neue Typographie which was like a textbook for designers and lay people. He sought to find a new asymmetric It worked to elevate standards of design by unifying artists and craftsmen with industry typography with the aim to be the delivery of a message in the shortest most efficient to elevate the functional and aesthetic manner which rejected decoration in favor qualities of mass production, particularly low-cost consumer products. Lazlo Moholy- of rational design. Nagy marked influence on the evolution of Bauhaus because he believed that typography must emphasize clarity and legibility. Letters should never be forced into a preconceived framework. For instance, a square. In graphic design he advocated an uninhibited use of all linear directions.
1920’s
Primarily self-taught, Lester Beall’s extensive reading and curious intellect formed the basis for his professional development. He experimented with planes of flat color, elementary signs, photomontage, wood type, and overprinting. Beall’s posters were used for the Rural Electrification Administration, a federal agency responsible for bringing electricity to the less populated areas of America. He combined photography, graphic signs, and typography and reduced pro-electrification messages to elemental signs. During the 1950s and 1960s, Beall became increasingly involved in the corporate design movement.
THE BAUHAUS SCHOOL
1917 CE DE STIJL
Piet Mondrian was a well known artist during the De Stijl period. He removed all representative elements from his work moved cubism toward a pure geometric abstraction. His work was composed of horizontal and vertical lines, rectangles and squares painted in mainly primary colors, red yellow and red, and neutrals black and white, gray. His compositions were of asymmetrical balance with tension between elements.
IMMIGRATION TO THE US TYPOGRAPHY
THE END OF BAUHAUS In 1931 the Nazi party dominated the Dessau City Council and canceled the Bauhaus faculty contracts in 1932. Consequently it would close August 10, 1933. The growing Nazi persecution led many Bauhaus faculty to emigrate to the United States where design theory was much behind Europe’s forward thinking progressive. But with the influx of these innovative design thinkers, America would replace Europe as the most influential design mecca of the world.
1931 CE
Eric Gill designed Gill Sans in 1928 with letterforms that have a humanist quality to them. They are not perfect and have a machine like quality to them. Paul Renner designed the Futura typefaces in 1927. This typeface had 15 variations and became the most widely used geometric sans-serif family. Rudolph Koch designed the typeface Kabel which was another popular geometric typeface with a medieval feel.
1920’s
A migration began slowly and reached a peak in the late 1930s, as cultural leaders from Europe, including many graphic designers, came to America. The design language they brought with them, and the changes imposed on their work by their American experience, forms an important phase of the development of American graphic design. Alexey Brodovitch was an example. He was the art director of Harper’s Bazaar from 1934 until 1958, where he rethought the approach to editorial design. He commissioned art and photography from major European artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, A. M. Cassandre, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Martin Munkacsi and taught designers how to use photography as a design element through cropping, enlargement, and the juxtaposition of images.
1938 CE
THE WPA
As part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, the federal government created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935. This was a direct relief effort for the unemployed. Launched in the fall of 1935, the WPA Federal Art Project enabled actors, musicians, visual artists, and writers to continue their professional careers. A poster project was included among the various cultural programs. From 1935 until 1939, when the Federal Art Project was abolished, over two million copies of approximately thirty-five thousand poster designs were produced. Most of the designs were silk-screened. Silk-screen printings was composed of flat color combined with influences from the Bauhaus, pictorial modernism, and constructivism to produce a modernist result that contrasted with the traditional illustration dominating much of American mass-media graphics of the era. Government-sponsored cultural events, including theatrical performances and art exhibitions, were frequent subjects for the poster project, as were public-service communications about health, crime prevention, housing, and education.
1935 CE
After the War
1900-1930 CE
1941 CE
WORLD WAR II America’s wartime graphics, commissioned by the U.S. Office of War Information, ranged from posters to informational training materials to amateurish cartoons. In 1941, when America’s entry into the global conflict seemed inevitable, the federal government began to develop propaganda posters to promote production, such as Carlu’s famous “America’s Answer! Production” poster. Over one hundred thousand copies were distributed throughout the country, and the New York Art Director’s Club Exhibition recognized Carlu with a top award.
1934 CE
FLIGHT FROM FASCISM
The rise of fascism in Europe created one of the greatest transnational migrations of intellectual and creative talent in history. When the Nazis closed the Bauhaus in 1933, faculty, students, and alumni dispersed throughout the world and made modern design a truly international movement. Will Burtin(1908–1972), recognized as one of Germany’s outstanding designers, he fled Germany in 1938 after refusing to work for the Nazi regime. His work combined a graphic clarity and directness with a lucid presentation of the subject matter. Others during this time period included, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Mies Van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Herbert Bayer, Herbert Matter, and Alexey Brodovitch.
1950 CE
CCA CAMPAIGN In 1950 CCA set out on its most ambitious and abstract advertising campaign. A truly revolutionary moment in marketing history, the advertisements that were collected in the “Great Ideas of Western Man” series removed nearly all mention of the paperboard industry as well as the company who paid for the advertisement.
1935 CE THE CCA
A major figure in the development of American modern design was the Chicago industrialist Walter P. Paepcke, who founded the Container Corporation of America (CCA). Paepcke recognized that design could both serve a pragmatic business purpose and become a major cultural thrust on the part of the corporation. A new trademark was applied to stationery, checks, invoices, vehicles, and signage. A consistent format used sans-serif type and a standard color combination of black and shipping-carton tan. Cassandre was commissioned by art director Charles Coiner of the N. W. Ayer advertising agency to create an ad campaign for CCA. The innovative campaign departed from the conventional headline and long-winded body copy of most 1930s advertising and featured a dominant visual supported by a simple statement.
1950 CE
HERBERT MATTER
Matter made significant contributions to design in work for the Container Corporation of America (CCA), magazines including Vogue, Fortune, and Harper’s Bazaar, and for twenty years as a graphicdesign and photography consultant to the Knoll Associates furniture design and manufacturing firm.
1953 CE HERBERT BAYER
1941 CE THE WAR BEGINS
Kauffer was commissioned to design posters to boost morale of the Allied Nations. Ben Shahn addressed political and economic injustice during the Depression, reached a larger audience in posters conveying Nazi brutality.
In 1953, CAA published the World GeoGraphic Atlas, which was designed and edited by Bayer over a five-year period. This publication was an important milestone in the visual presentation of data.
1950 CE
CCA CAMPAIGN (CONT)
Roughly once a month between 1950 and 1970, readers of national news magazines would find a visual rendering of a major philosophical idea as offered by a famous Western writer. Major artists such as Rene Magritte and William de Kooning created these works under the direction of CCA. The company gave the artists one guideline: Interpret the quotation in any way you choose. The results were unmistakably brilliant interpretations famous writers quotes.
The Digital Era
1950-2000 CE
1971 CE CORPORATE IDENTITY
1960s-1970s
THE CONCEPTUAL IMAGE & RETRO DESIGN
During the 1960s, posters would become the craze, fostered by social activism brought on by a reaction to the Vietnam War, Women’s Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movements. Posters were hung in apartments more frequently than they were found on the streets. These posters made statements about social views rather than commercial messages. The first wave of posters Raymond Loewy recognized the significance would come from the hippie culture in the form of psychedelic posters due to their of comprehensive design systems and left an anti establishment values, rock music and psychedelic drugs, which were unforgettable mark on America’s history of prominently displayed in the form of the swirling curves of art nouveau, visual styling. His streamlined aesthetic can intense colors, dizzying optical illusions- op-art . be seen across a range of industrial products, Helvetica typeface, this new sans serif, has an packaging, architecture, interiors, and corporate identities. He changed the way even larger x-height than the font, Univers. industrial designers engaged with corporate It was released as Neue Haas Grotesk by design culture by assuming more control Edouard Hoffman and Max Miedinger. When this design was produced in Germany over entire industrial and visual campaigns. by the now defunct D. Stempel AG in 1961, For example, product designs for blue chip companies such as BP, Shell, Exxon, the face was renamed with the traditional Nabisco, and Lucky Strike were not limited Latin name for Switzerland. Helvetica’s to packaging or industrial products but also well-defined forms and excellent rhythm included complete identity designs. of positive and negative shapes made it the most specified typeface internationally during the 1960s and 1970s. However, because different designers in several countries developed Helvetica’s various weights, italics, and widths, the original Helvetica family lacked the cohesiveness of Univers.
1960 CE HELVETICA
1950 CE
SWISS STYLE The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style developed in Switzerland in the 1950s that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity. Ernst Keller, Theo Ballmer, Josef Muller Brockmann, Max Bill and Max Huber to name a few were all Swiss style graphic design artists.
THE DIGITAL ERA From the mid 80’s onward designers became increasingly fascinated with the potential of the computer, not only as an efficient tool but as a potent catalyst for innovation. Graphic design would be transformed and irrevocably changed by the continued development of hardware and software, By the 1990s, digital Post modernists created works beginning technology enabled one person operating a in the 1970s without any set adherence to desktop computer to control most—or even rational order and formal organization. They all—of these functions. also seemed to entirely pay no attention to traditional conventions such as legibility. Yet, while postmodern design did not consist of one unified graphic style, the movement was an expressive and playful time for Paul Rand, had a thorough understanding of the modern designers who searched for more and more movement. Rand’s strength was in his ability to analyze a ways to go against the system. Wolfgang message, reduce it to a symbolic essence, and communicate Weingart was a well known post-modernist the message through dynamic visual form. He often altered or artsist. He sandwiched images and type and juxtaposed ordinary, universally understood signs and symbols to reinterpret meaning and support a message, such as the barbed photograph them- basically similar to what is done in layers in photoshop only with film. wire on the 1940 cover of Direction magazine. Rand employed And the results are strikingly similar to a visual and symbolic contrast, and used collage and montage as photoshopped images but with much more a means to bring concepts, images, textures, and objects into a effort and time involved to achieve the result. cohesive whole.
POST MODERNISM
THE NEW YORK SCHOOL
1980’s
DESIGNERS
Zuzana Licko, Carol Twombly, Laura Worthington, Jessica Hische, Erik Spiekermann, Jonathan Hoefler & Tobias Frere-Jones, Ed Fella, David Carson, Stefan Sagmeister, Chip Kidd, John Maeda Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell, Michael Bierut and Muriel Cooper are all well known designers in the graphic design field.
1900’s