-
100
prehistoric
Early human markings found in Africa are over two hundred thousand years old. From the early Paleolithic to the Neolithic period (35,000 to 4000 BCE), early Africans and Europeans left paintings in caves, including the Lascaux caves in southern France and Altamira in Spain -
100
Prehistoric
Archaic tablet fragment from the late fourth millennium BCE. The drilled hole denotes a number, and the pictographs represent animals in this transaction of sheep and goats. -
100
Prehistoric
This clay tablet demonstrates how the Sumerian symbols for “star” (which also meant “heaven” or “god”), “head,” and “water” evolved from early pictographs (3100 BCE). The latter were turned on their side by 2800 BCE and evolved into early cuneiform writing by 2500 BCE. -
100
Prehistoric
Around 2800 BCE scribes turned the pictographs on their sides and began to write in horizontal rows, from left to right and top to bottom (Fig. 1–7). This made writing easier, and it made the pictographs less literal. -
100
Prehistoric
The earliest known hieroglyphics date about 3100 BCHieroglyphics consisted of pictograms that depicted objects or beings. These were combined to designate actual ideas, phonograms denoting sounds, and determinatives identifying categories. picture shown:Details of the Rosetta Stone showing the name Ptolemy in hieroglyphics -
105
Invention of Paper
Dynastic records attribute the invention of paper to the eunuch and high governmental official Ts'ai Lun, who reported his invention to Emperor Ho in 105 CE. Whether Ts'ai Lun truly invented paper, perfected an earlier invention, or patronized its invention is not known. He was, however, deified as the god of the papermakers. -
326
Unicals
In a Greek wooden tablet from 326 CE (see Fig. 2–12), the primary characteristics of uncials are seen. Uncials are rounded, freely drawn majuscule letters more suited to rapid writing than either square capitals or rustic capitals. The curves reduced the number of strokes required to make many letterforms, and the number of angular joints—which have a tendency to clog up with ink—was significantly reduced. -
Jan 1, 770
Discovery of Printing
The earliest existing datable relief printing was produced, the technique was well developed. Using a brush and ink, the material to be printed was prepared on a sheet of thin paper. Calligraphy was written, images were drawn. The block cutter applied this thin page to the smooth wooden block, image side down, after wetting the surface with a paste or sizing. When the paste When the paste or sizing was thoroughly dry, the paper was carefully rubbed off. A faint inked imprint of the image, which -
Jan 1, 1000
Islamic Manuscripts
Probably before the year 1000 CE, miniature paintings appeared in Persian books and became an important aspect of book illumination. Artists in Persia (now Iran) developed the defining attributes of illustrated Islamic manuscripts because the ruling shahs patronized the creation of masterworks containing elaborate detail, precise patterns, and vibrant color. -
Period: Jan 1, 1000 to Jan 1, 1150
Romanesqu Gothic Period
During the middle of the twelfth century the Romanesque period evolved into the Gothic, which lasted from 1150 CE until the European Renaissance began in fourteenth-century Italy. -
Jan 1, 1045
The Invention of Moveable Type
In a woodblock print, such as Figure the picture shown, the wood around each calligraphic character is painstakingly cut away. Around 1045 CE the Chinese alchemist Pi Sheng extended this process by developing the concept of movable type.If each character were an individual raised form, he reasoned, then any number of characters could be placed in sequence on a surface, inked, and printed. -
Jan 1, 1200
Rise of the Universities
During the 1200s the rise of the universities created an expanding market for books. For example, twenty thousand of Paris's hundred thousand residents were students who flocked to the city to attend the university there. Literacy was on the rise, and professional lay illuminators emerged to help meet the growing demand for books. -
Jan 1, 1300
Early European Block Printing
By the early 1300s pictorial designs were being printed on textiles in Europe. Card playing was popular, and in spite of being outlawed and denounced by zealous clergy, this pastime stimulated a thriving underground block-printing industry, possibly before 1400. -
Jan 1, 1400
Late Mideval Manuscripts
In the early 1400s the Book of Hours became Europe's most popular book. This private devotional volume contained prayers, religious texts for each hour of the day, and calendars listing the days of important saints. -
Jan 1, 1400
Printing comes to Europe
Typography is the term for printing with independent, movable, and reusable bits of metal or wood, each of which has a raised letterform on one face. This dry definition belies the immense potential for human dialogue and the new horizons for graphic design that were unleashed by this extraordinary invention in the mid-1400s Typography is the term for printing with independent, movable, and reusable bits of metal or wood. -
Jan 1, 1400
Jack of Diamonds
woodblock playing card, c. 1400. The flat, stylized design conventions of playing cards have changed little in over five hundred years. Visual signs to designate the suits began as the four classes of medieval society. Hearts signified the clergy; spades (derived from the Italian spada [sword]) stood for the nobility; the leaflike club represented the peasantry; and diamonds denoted the burghers -
Jan 1, 1400
forty-two-line Bible
In the mid-1440s Gutenberg moved back to Mainz, where he resolved the technical, organizational, and production problems that had plagued earlier typographic printing efforts. He had labored for ten years before his first printing and twenty years before printing the first typographic book, called the forty-two-line Bible -
Jun 15, 1400
Nuremberg becomes a printing center
Because printing required a huge capital investment and a large trained labor force, it is not surprising that by the end of the 1400s Nuremberg, which had become central Europe's most prosperous center of commerce and distribution, housed Germany's most esteemed printer, Anton Koberger Picture shown: Anton Koberger, pages from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493. The raised hand of God in the initial illustration is repeated over several pages retelling the biblical story of creation. -
Jan 1, 1403
Bronze Moveable Type
A notable effort to print from bronze movable type began in Korea under government sponsorship in 1403 CE. Characters cut from beech wood were pressed into a trough filled with fine sand, making a negative impression. A cover with holes was placed over the impression, and molten bronze was poured into it. After the bronze cooled, a type character was formed. These metal characters were, of course, less fragile than Pi Sheng's earthenware types. -
Sep 1, 1428
Gutenberg's exilhation
In September 1428 he was exiled from Mainz for his leadership role in a power struggle between the landed noblemen and the burghers of the trade guilds who sought a greater political voice. -
Jan 1, 1450
Illuminated Manuscripts
The vibrant luminosity of gold leaf, as it reflected light from the pages of handwritten books, gave the sensation of the page being literally illuminated; thus, this dazzling effect gave birth to the term illuminated manuscript. Today this name is used for all decorated and illustrated handwritten books produced from the late Roman Empire until printed books replaced manuscripts after typography was developed in Europe around 1450 -
Jan 1, 1450
Moveable typography in Europe
Johann Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg (late 14th century to 1468) of Mainz, Germany, first brought together the complex systems and subsystems necessary to print a typographic book around the year 1450. -
Aug 24, 1456
Fust and Schoeffer
the firm of Fust and Schoeffer became the most important printing firm in the world, establishing a hundred-year family dynasty of printers, publishers, and booksellers. The new partnership's first venture was the completion of the forty-two-line Bible. As one of the forty-seven surviving copies bears a marginal notation that the hand rubrication, which is the application of red-ink initials and titles by a scribe, was completed on 24 August 1456 -
Jan 1, 1460
Origins of the illustrated typographic book
Albrecht Pfister began to illustrate his books with woodblock prints. About 1460, he used five woodblocks (Fig. 6–2) and the types from Gutenberg's thirty-six-line Bible to print his first edition of Johannes von Tepl's Der Ackerman aus Böhmen -
Jan 1, 1465
Printer invention
In 1465 Cardinal Turrecremata of the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco invited two printers, Conrad Sweynheym of Mainz (who had worked for Peter Schoeffer) and Arnold Pannartz of Cologne, to Subiaco to establish a press. The cardinal wished to publish Latin classics and his own writings. Picture shown: Johannes Grunenberg (printer) and Lucas Cranach the Elder (illustrator), pages from Passional Christi und Antichristi, 1521. Here Christ is depicted driving the moneylenders from the temple. -
Feb 3, 1468
Death of Gutenberg
the honorable Master Johann Gutenberg died 3 February 1468. -
Jan 1, 1469
Graphic design of the Italian renaissance
A Mainz goldsmith, Johannes da Spira was given a five-year monopoly on printing in Venice, publishing the first book, Epistolae ad familiares (Letters to Friends), by Cicero, in 1469. His innovative and handsome roman type (Shown in picture) cast off some of the Gothic qualities found in the fonts of Sweynheym and Pannartz -
Jan 1, 1470
Establishing the press
In the 1470s Günther Zainer established a press in Augsburg, and his relative Johann Zainer established one about 70 kilometers (43 miles) to the east in Ulm. Both men were scribes and illuminators who had learned printing in Strasbourg. picture shown: Günther Zainer (printer), page with hand-colored woodcut of a couple playing a board game from Das goldene Spiel (The Golden Game), by Meister Ingolt, Augsburg, 1472. -
Jan 1, 1470
Printing in Germany
Printing came to France in 1470 when three German printers—Michael Freiburger, Ulrich Gering, and Martin Kranz—were sponsored by the prior and the librarian of the Sorbonne to establish a press there -
Jan 1, 1476
Printing of the Record Book
A master printer from Augsburg, Germany, Ratdolt worked in Venice from 1476 until 1486. Working closely with his partners, Bernhard Maler and Peter Loeslein, in 1476 Ratdolt printed the Calendarium (Record Book) picture shown: Erhard Ratdolt, Peter Loeslein, and Bernhard Maler, title page for Calendarium, by Regiomontanus, 1476. The title and author are identified in verse describing the book. The date and printers' names in Latin appear below. -
Jan 1, 1480
Press expansion
By 1480 twenty-three northern European towns, thirty-one Italian towns, seven French towns, six Iberian towns, and one English town had presses. Picture shown: Ex libris design for Johannes Knabensberg, c. 1450s. One of the earliest extant bookplates, it bears an inscription, “Hans Igler that the hedgehog may kiss you.” Igler, Knabensberg's nickname, is similar to the German word for hedgehog, making this an early graphic pun. -
Jan 1, 1492
typographic books entering the church
In 1492 a cardinal, later Pope Julius II, ordered scribes to hand-letter a copy of a typographic book for his library. -
Jan 1, 1500
Censorship
Censorship became an increasingly difficult problem during the 1500s, as church and state sought to maintain their authority and control. Propagating ideas, not printing, was the main purpose of the scholar-printers, who often found their quest for knowledge and critical study in conflict with religious leaders and royalty. Picture shown: Henri Estienne the Elder, title page for Aristotle's Metaphysics, 1515. By setting the type in geometric shapes, Estienne achieved a distinctive graphic desig -
Jan 1, 1500
Basel and Lyons become centers
During the 1500s Basel, which became a part of Switzerland in 1501, and Lyons, a French city located 300 kilometers southwest of Basel, developed into major centers for graphic design. Printers in the two towns enjoyed a lively exchange. Types, woodcut borders, and illustrations from Basel were on many Lyons presses, and Lyons printers often produced editions for their busy Basel counterparts.
Picture shown: Johann Froben (printer) and Hans Holbein (illustrator), title page for Sir Thomas More -
Jan 1, 1501
The Art of Dying
The Ars Moriendi (Art of Dying) was a best seller during the fifteenth century. At least sixty-five editions, including manuscripts, block books, and typographic books, were produced before 1501 Picture shown: Giovanni and Alberto Alvise, title page from Ars Moriendi, 1478. The vocabulary of graphic design possibilities was expanded by the design and casting of metal decorative ornaments that, along with the type, could be composed as part of the page. -
Jan 1, 1515
Francis gave rights to French Renaissance
Francis I (1494–1547) ascended to the French throne on 1 January 1515, and the French Renaissance flowered as he gave generous support to humanists, authors, and visual artists. Picture shown: Ugo da Carpi (c. 1479–1533), page from Thesauro, c. 1535. This contained a compilation of scripts by Italian writing masters Arrighi, Sigismondo Fanti, and Giovantonio Tagliente. -
Oct 31, 1517
Martain Luthers contribution to typographic book expansion
After Martin Luther (1483–1546) posted his Ninety-five Theses for debate on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Saxony, on 31 October 1517, his friends passed copies to printers. By December his proclamation had spread throughout central Europe. Within a few months, thousands of people all over Europe knew his views. Without typography, it is doubtful that the Protestant movement of the Reformation era could have occurred. -
Jan 1, 1525
Tory's influence
Tory's influence gained momentum in 1525, when he initiated a series of Horae (Books of Hours) (Fig. 7–34) printed for him by Simon de Colines, that set the style for the era. A new clarity of thought, an innovative attitude toward form, and a precise harmony of the various elements—text, capital initials, borders, and illustrations—mark the 1525 Horae as a milestone in graphic design -
Printer reduction
Upon ascending to the English throne in 1660, Charles II demanded that the number of printers be reduced to twenty “by death or otherwise.” -
Photography, the new communications tools
Around 1665, small, portable, boxlike camera obscuras were developed. Picture shown: As this nineteenth-century camera obscura demonstrates, the optical principles of photography were well understood and used by artists to aid in drawing. -
Calson and Baskerville
William Bowyer encouraged Caslon to take up type design and founding, which he did in 1720 with almost immediate success. Caslon worked in a tradition of Old Style roman typographic design that had begun over two hundred years earlier during the Italian Renaissance. This tradition was bolstered by John Baskerville Picture shown: William Caslon, broadside type specimen, 1734. This was the first broadside type specimen issued by Caslon. -
Graphic design rococo era
The fanciful French art and architecture that flourished from about 1720 until around 1770 is called rococo. Florid and intricate, rococo ornament is composed of S- and C-curves with scrollwork, tracery, and plant forms derived from nature, classical and oriental art, and medieval sources. Light pastel colors were often used with ivory white and gold in asymmetrically balanced designs. Picture shown: Philippe Grandjean, specimen of Romain du Roi, 1702. -
Judiac Manuscripts
Many of the finest Judaic illuminated manuscripts are Haggadot, containing Jewish religious literature, including historical stories and proverbs—especially the saga of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. Pcture shown: the manuscript is written on a highly polished paper in an elegant script. Intricate patterns with interlocking forms and vibrant colors share design motifs with Islamic architectural decorations and carpets. -
Standardization Of Proportions
In 1737 Fournier le Jeune pioneered standardization when he published his first table of proportions. -
Sand Castle Large Trend
Cotterell began the trend of sand-casting large, bold display letters as early as 1765 -
Japanese influence
Working within an evolving tradition, several Japanese artists made major contributions to the genre. Okumura Masanobu (1686–1764) was among the first artists to move from hand-coloring single-color woodcuts to two-color printing, and Suzuki Harunobu (c. 1725–70) introduced full-color prints from numerous blocks, each printed in a different color, in 1765. -
Imperial designs of Louis Rene Luce
During the three decades from 1740 until 1770, Luce designed a series of types that were narrow and condensed, with serifs as sharp as spurs.
Picture shown: Louis René Luce (designer) and Jean Joseph Barbou (printer), ornaments page from Essai d'une nouvelle typographie, 1771. These meticulously constructed cornices and borders express the authority and absolutism of the French monarchy. -
The 17th century
By 1775 there were about fifty printers in the thirteen colonies, and they fueled the revolutionary fever that was brewing. Just as printing had urged Europe toward the Protestant Reformation, it now pushed the American colonies toward revolution. picture shown: Abraham Bosse, Printing Shop—The Plate Printer, 1642. A convincing range of lights and darks is built from scratched lines -
The modern style
Fonts issued from 1775 by François-Ambroise Didot possessed a lighter, more geometric quality, similar in feeling to Bodoni's designs evolving under Baskerville's influence (Shown in Picture). -
Point System in France
Around 1785 François-Ambroise Didot revised Fournier's typographic measurement system and created the point system used in France today. -
Shakespeare Press
British national pride led to the establishment of the Shakespeare Press in 1786 to produce splendorous editions to rival the folio volumes of Paris and Parma. -
True modern-style letterform
8–26. Pierre Didot, title page for Vergil's Bucolica, Georgica, et Aeneis (Pastorals, Georgics, and the Aeneid), 1798. The typeface used in this book is an early presentation of a true modern-style letterform. Straight hairline serifs, extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, and construction on a vertical axis are characteristics that mark this break with transitional letterforms. **pic!! -
The development of lithography
Lithography was invented by Bavarian author Aloys Senefelder (1771–1834) between 1796 and 1798. Senefelder was seeking a cheap way to print his own dramatic works by experimenting with etched stones and metal reliefs. He eventually arrived at the idea that a stone could be etched away around grease-pencil writing and made into a relief printing plate. Senefelder named his process lithography -
Fat-face Type style
a major category of type design innovated by Cotterell's pupil and successor, Robert Thorne (d. 1820), possibly around 1803. A fat-face typestyle is a roman face whose contrast and weight have been increased by expanding the thickness of the heavy strokes -
Revolution Printing
The first steam-powered cylinder press, 1814. Koenig's invention caused the speed of printing to skyrocket, while its price dropped considerably. -
Figgin's specimen book
Figgins's 1815 specimen book also presented the first nineteenth-century version of Tuscan-style letters (shown in picture). This style, characterized by serifs that are extended and curved, was put through an astounding range of variations during the nineteenth century, often with bulges, cavities, and ornaments. -
3D Type
in 1815 Vincent Figgins showed styles that projected the illusion of three dimensions Picture shown: Vincent Figgins, five lines pica, In Shade, 1815. The first three-dimensional or perspective fonts were fat faces. Perhaps designers were seeking to compensate for the lightness of the thin strokes, which tended to reduce the legibility of fat faces at a distance. -
Harper's Magazine
James (1795–1869) and John (1797–1875) Harper used modest savings—and their father's offer to mortgage the family farm if necessary—to launch a New York printing firm in 1817.The firm opened the era of the pictorial magazine in 1850 when the 144-page Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Fig. 9–69) began publication with serialized English fiction and numerous woodcut illustrations created for each issue by the art staff. -
Slab Serif Fonts
In Thorowgood's 1821 specimen book of Thorne's type, the name Egyptian—which is still used for this style—was given to slab-serif fonts (shown in picture). -
The wood type pressor
As display types expanded in size, problems multiplied for both printer and founder. In casting, it was difficult to keep the metal in a liquid state while pouring, and uneven cooling often created slightly concave printing surfaces. Many printers found large metal types to be prohibitively expensive, brittle, and heavy. An American printer named Darius Wells (1800–75) began to experiment with hand-carved wooden types and in 1827 invented a lateral router. -
"the lightening press"
in 1846 the American inventor and mechanical genius Richard M. Hoe (1812–86) perfected the rotary lithographic press, which was nicknamed “the lightning press” because it could print six times as fast as the lithographic flatbed presses then in use. -
Popular graphics of the Victorian era
In 1849 Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, conceived the idea of a grand exhibition with hundreds of exhibitors from all industrial nations. This became the Great Exhibition of 1851, an important summation of the progress of the Industrial Revolution and a catalyst for future developments. -
The battle on the signboards
The letterpress printers responded to competition from the fluid and colorful lithographs with heroic and ingenious efforts to extend their medium. Witness, for example, the enormous multicolored woodcut posterdesigned by Joseph Morse of New York for the Sands, Nathan and Company Circus in 1856 (shown in pic). -
The design language of Chromolithograpgy
From Boston, chromolithography quickly spread to other major cities, and by 1860 about sixty chromolithography firms employed eight hundred people. Chromolithography's popularity continued to grow
pic shown:L. Prang and Company and others, c. 1880–early 1900s. This collection shows a range of graphic ephemera printed by chromolithography. -
Images for children
Walter Crane (1845–1915) was one of the earliest and the most influential designers of children's picture books (Fig. 9–65). Apprenticed as a wood engraver as a teenager, Crane was twenty years old in 1865 when his Railroad Alphabet was published. A long series of his toy books broke with the traditions of printed material for children. -
Cheret
During the 1870s Chéret evolved away from Victorian complexity, simplifying his designs and increasing the scale of his major figures and lettering and evolved away from Victorian complexity, simplifying his designs and increasing the scale of his major figures and lettering -
Photoengraving
In 1871 John Calvin Moss of New York pioneered a commercially feasible photoengraving method for translating line artwork into metal letterpress plates. -
The battle on the signboards
In 1875 Englishman Robert Barclay received a patent for offset lithographic printing on tin. Ink applied to an image drawn on a stone was picked up by a nonabsorbent cardboard impression cylinder and immediately offset onto the sheet metal. -
Grasset sharing his knowledge
During the 1880s Grasset was a regular at Rodolphe Salis's Le Chat Noir nightclub, a gathering place for artists and writers that opened in 1881. There he met and shared his enthusiasm for color printing with younger artists: Georges Auriol (1863–1938), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901), and fellow Swiss artist Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859–1923) -
Cercle des XX
Belgium experienced the beginnings of creative ferment during the 1880s, when the Cercle des XX (Group of Twenty) formed to show progressive art ignored by the salon establishment -
the application of photography printing
A major breakthrough occurred on 4 March 1880, when the New York Daily Graphic printed the first reproduction of a photograph with a full tonal range in a newspaper (pictures shown). Entitled “A Scene in Shantytown,” it was printed from a crude halftone screen invented by Stephen H. Horgan. -
The influence of ukiyo-e
The late-nineteenth-century Western mania for all things Japanese is called Japonisme. Japanese artifacts streamed into Europe, and several books on Japanese art and ornament were published during the 1880s. Although ukiyo-e practitioners were considered mere artisans in Japan, they captivated European artists, who drew inspiration from the calligraphic line drawing, abstraction and simplification of natural appearances, flat color and silhouettes, unconventional use of bold black shapes, and de -
Defining the medium
Eadweard Muybridge, plate published in The Horse in Motion, 1883. Sequence photography proved the ability of graphic images to record time-and-space relationships. Moving images became a possibility -
Grasset
Swiss-born Grasset was the first illustrator/designer to rival Chéret in public popularity. Grasset had studied medieval art intensely, and this influence, mingled with a love of exotic Asian art, was reflected strongly in his designs for furniture, stained glass, textiles, and books. A bellwether achievement, both in graphic design and printing technology, was the 1883 publication of Histoire des quatre fils Aymon (Tale of the Four Sons of Aymon) (Figs. 11–12 and 11–13), designed and illustrate -
The Century Guild
Featuring the work of guild members, the Century Guild Hobby Horse began publication in 1884 as the first finely printed magazine devoted exclusively to the visual arts. -
Emmanuel Orazi
Although Emmanuel Orazi (1860–1934) came to prominence as a poster designer in 1884, when he designed a poster for Sarah Bernhardt, it was not until his static style yielded to the influences of Grasset and Mucha a decade later that he produced his best work. An example is his poster for La Maison Moderne (The Modern House) -
The mechanization of typography
Mergenthaler was a German immigrant working in a Balti-more machine shop who struggled for a decade to perfect his typesetter. On 3 July 1886, the thirty-two-year-old inventor demonstrated his keyboard-operated machine (shown in picture) in the office of the New York Tribune. -
Steinlen
Steinlen was a prolific illustrator during the 1880s and 1890s, and his radical political views, socialist affiliations, and anticlerical stance led him toward a social realism depicting poverty, exploitation, and the working class picture shown: Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, poster, “Tournée du Chat Noir de Rodolphe Salis,” -
The world's first underground electric railway system
In 1890 the world's first underground electric railway system opened in London. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the Underground Electric Railways of London, Ltd., consolidated much of London's urban transportation system. Just as AEG director Emil Rathenau was the catalyst for that firm's comprehensive design program, a statistician and attorney named Frank Pick (1878–1941) provided the vision necessary to lead the Underground Group to the forefront of innovative publicity -
English Art Nouveau
In England the art nouveau movement was primarily concerned with graphic design and illustration rather than architectural and product design. Its sources, in addition to those listed earlier, included Gothic art and Victorian painting. A strong momentum toward an international style was created by the April 1893 inaugural issue of the Studio, the first of nearly a dozen new 1890s European art periodicals. -
La Goulue au Moulin Rouge
Even Jules Chéret had to concede that Toulouse-Lautrec's 1891 poster “La Goulue au Moulin Rouge” broke new ground in poster design (shown in pic). A dynamic pattern of flat planes—black spectator's silhouettes, yellow ovals for lamps, and the stark white undergarments of the notorious cancan dancer, who performed with transparent or slit underwear—move horizontally across the center of the poster. -
Victorian Typography
Berlin-born Herman Ihlenburg (b. 1843) was a major Victorian typeface designer who spent most of his career from 1866 until after the turn of the century with the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan foundry in Philadelphia, which became a major component of the American Type Founders Company when the monopoly was formed in 1892. picture shown: Herman Ihlenburg, typeface designs. These typeface designs demonstrate the Victorian tendency for complexity. -
Déblaiement d'art
In 1892 Van de Velde wrote an important essay, “Déblaiement d'art,” calling for a new art that would be contemporary in concept and form but possess the vitality and ethical integrity of the great decorative and applied arts of the past. -
The Sphinx
In 1893 Ricketts's first total book design appeared, and the following year he produced his masterly design for Oscar Wilde's exotic and perplexing poem, The Sphinx (shown in pic). Although Ricketts owed a debt to Morris, he usually rejected the density of Kelmscott design. His page layouts are lighter, his ornaments and bindings more open and geometric (Fig. 11–24), -
The Inland Printer
Beginning in 1894, Bradley's work for the Inland Printer, a trade journal devoted to commercial printing (Figs. 11–44 and 11–45), and the Chap Book, a literary magazine (Fig. 11–46), ignited art nouveau in America -
Wayside press
Inspired by the Kelmscott Press, Bradley established the Wayside Press after moving from Chicago to Springfield, Massachusetts, in late 1894. -
The private press movement
Established in 1895, the Ashendene Press, directed by C. H. St. John Hornby of London, proved an exceptional private press (Fig. 10–27). The type designed for Ashendene was inspired by the semi-Gothic types used by Sweynheym and Pannartz in Subiaco. It possessed a ringing elegance and straightforward legibility with modest weight differences between the thick and thin strokes and a slightly compressed letter. -
Jugendstil
When art nouveau arrived in Germany it was called Jugendstil (youth style) after a new magazine, Jugend (Youth), which began publication in Munich in 1896. -
The Kelmscott Press
The Kelmscott Press was committed to recapturing the beauty of incunabula books. Meticulous hand-printing, handmade paper, handcut woodblocks, and initials and borders similar to those used by Ratdolt turned the picturesque cottage into a time machine swinging four centuries into the past. The book became an art form.Daniel Berkeley Updike, pages from the Altar Book, Merrymount Press, 1896, Updike's Altar Book openly displays his admiration for the Kelmscott Press. The book uses Merrymount type -
Mackintosh's Scottish Musical Review poster
abstract interpretations of the human figure, such as Mackintosh's Scottish Musical Review poster (Fig. 12–4), had not been seen in Scotland before; many observers were outraged. But the editor of The Studio was so impressed that he visited Glasgow and published two articles on the new group in 1897. -
Plakstil
The reductive, flat-color design school that emerged in Germany early in the twentieth century is called Plakatstil (Poster Style). 14–6. William Nicholson, illustration from An Alphabet, 1897. The reductive simplicity of Beggarstaff posters is maintained -
The Vienna Secession
In Austria, the Vienna Secession, with its Sezessionstil, came into being on 3 April 1897, when the younger members of the Künstlerhaus, the Viennese Creative Artists' Association, resigned in stormy protest. Technically, the refusal to allow foreign artists to participate in Künstlerhaus exhibitions was the main issue, but the clash between tradition and new ideas emanating from France, England, and Germany lay at the heart of the conflict, and the young artists wanted to exhibit more frequentl -
"The Four"
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928) and J. Herbert McNair (1868–1955)—and the work of two day students—sisters Margaret (1865–1933) and Frances Macdonald (1874–1921). The four students began to collaborate and were soon christened “the Four.” Artistic collaboration and friendship led to matrimony, for in 1899 McNair married Frances Macdonald. The following year, Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald married. -
Floral Phase
Graphic design, more ephemeral and timely than most other art forms, began to move rapidly toward the floral phase of art nouveau as Chéret, Grasset, Toulouse-Lautrec, and especially Mucha developed its graphic motifs. From 1895 until 1900, art nouveau found its most comprehensive statement in Mucha's work. His dominant theme was a central female figure surrounded by stylized forms derived from plants and flowers -
The Klingspor Foundry
The Klingspor Foundry was the first German typefoundry to commission new fonts from artists, and in 1900 it released Eckmann's Eckmannschrift (Fig. 11–77), which created a sensation and thrust this small regional foundry into international prominence. -
The Klingspor Foundry
The Klingspor Foundry was the first German typefoundry to commission new fonts from artists, and in 1900 it released Eckmann's Eckmannschrift (Fig. 11–77), which created a sensation and thrust this small regional foundry into international prominence -
Van de Velde
Although Van de Velde became an innovator of art nouveau, he was far more interested in furthering the Arts and Crafts philosophy than in visual invention as an end in itself. After the turn of the century, his teaching and writing (The Renaissance in Modern Applied Art, 1901; A Layman's Sermons on Applied Art, 1903) became a vital source for the development of twentieth-century architecture and design theory. -
Prehistoric
Archaic tablet fragment from the late fourth millennium BCE. The drilled hole denotes a number, and the pictographs represent animals in this transaction of sheep and goats. -
Early Markings
Early human markings found in Africa are over two hundred thousand years old. From the early Paleolithic to the Neolithic period (35,000 to 4000 BCE), early Africans and Europeans left paintings in caves, including the Lascaux caves in southern France and Altamira in Spain -
Art Nouveau comes to America
In 1904, at the height of his fame, Mucha left Paris for his first American visit. -
The Maverick from Munich
A leading Plakatstil designer, Ludwig Hohlwein (1874–1949) of Munich, began his career as a graphic illustrator with work commissioned by Jugend magazine as early as 1904. During the first half of the century, Hohlwein's graphic art evolved with changing social conditions. The Beggarstaffs were his initial inspiration, and in the years before World War I Hohlwein took great delight in reducing his images to flat shapes. Unlike the Beggarstaffs and his Berlin rival Bernhard, -
Switzerland and the sach plakat
The country has long been a popular vacation spot, and travel posters filled a natural need. With his 1908 poster of Zermatt (Fig. 14–19), Emil Cardinaux (1877–1936) created the first Sach plakat Swiss poster, sharing many characteristics with the Plakatstil in Germany. -
Futurism
Futurism was launched when the Italian poet Filippo Marinetti (1876–1944) published his Manifesto of Futurism in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909. Marinetti's stirring words established futurism as a revolutionary movement in which all the arts were to test their ideas and forms against the new realities of scientific and industrial society -
Cubism
Picasso and his close associate Georges Braque (1881–1963) developed cubism as the art movement that replaced the rendering of appearances with the endless possibilities of invented form. Analytical cubism (Fig. 13–3) is the name given to their work from about 1910 to 1912. -
Russian suprematism
Kasimir Malevich (1878–1935) founded a painting style of basic forms and pure color that he called suprematism. He created an elemental geometric abstraction that was new and totally nonobjective. He rejected both utilitarian function and pictorial representation He believed the essence of the art experience was the perceptual effect of color and form. To demonstrate this, perhaps as early as 1913 he made a composition with a black square on a white background (Fig. 15–5) -
Poster goes to war
Perhaps the most effective British poster of the war years is the widely imitated 1915 military recruiting poster by Alfred Leete (1882–1933) showing the popular Lord Horatio Kitchener, British secretary of war, pointing directly at the viewer (Picture shown). This image originally appeared as the 5 September 1914 cover of London Opinion magazine above the headline “Your Country Needs You. -
Cheops
in 1916, Cheops, designed by Van Royen, was printed in Zilvertype with the initial letters and titles cut by De Roos following Van Royen's suggestions (Fig. 10–37). Van Royen had an exotic side, and his easily distinguishable titles, initials, and vignettes are far more extravagant than those of Van Krimpen and De Roos. -
De Stijl
The De Stijl movement was launched in the Netherlands in the late summer of 1917. Its founder and guiding spirit, Théo van Doesburg (1883–1931), was joined by painters Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), Bart Anthony van der Leck (1876–1958), and Vilmos Huszár (1884–1931), the architect Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud (1890–1963), and others. Working in an abstract geometric style, De Stijl artists sought universal laws of balance
pic shown:Piet Mondrian, oil on canvas, Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue -
Posters Prime
The poster reached the zenith of its importance as a communications medium during World War I (1914–18). Printing technologies had advanced rapidly, while radio and other electronic means of public communication were not yet in widespread use.
Picture shown: Lucian Bernhard, poster for a war-loan campaign, 1915. A sharp militaristic feeling is amplified by the Gothic inscription, “This is the way to peace—the enemy wills it so! Thus subscribe to the war loan!” -
Ernst Keller
In 1918 Keller joined the Zurich Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Art) to teach a course in advertising layout and develop a professional course in design and typography. In his teaching and his designs of lettering, trademarks, and posters, Keller maintained a standard of excellence over four decades. Rather than espousing a specific style, Keller argued that the solution to a design problem should emerge from its content.
pic shown:Ernst Keller, poster for the Rietberg
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Dada
Dada quickly spread from Zurich to other European cities. Dadaists said they were not creating art but mocking and defaming a society gone insane; even so, several Dadaists produced meaningful visual art and influenced graphic design. Dada artists claimed to have invented photomontage (shown in pic) as early as 1918 -
Deirdre en de zonen van Usnach
In 1920 the publication of Deirdre en de zonen van Usnach (Deirdre and the Sons of Usnach), by A. Roland Hoist, inaugurated the twenty-one-book Palladium series dedicated to contemporary poets (Shown in pic). -
New typograpghy
The passion for the new typography created a spate of sans-serif styles during the 1920s. -
The Village Letter Foundry
In 1923 Goudy established the Village Letter Foundry in an old mill on the Hudson River, where he became a successful anachronism—an independent type designer who cut matrixes, then cast and sold type. picture shown:Frederic W. Goudy, booklet cover, 1911. The ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement were actualized in printing for commerce. -
Surrealism
With roots in Dada and in a group of young French writers and poets associated with the journal Littérature, surrealism entered the Paris scene in 1924, searching for the “more real than real world behind the real”—the world of intuition, dreams, and the unconscious realm explored by Freud. -
Jan Tschichold and the new typography
the October 1925 issue of Typographische Mitteilungen (Typographic Impartations), Tschichold designed a twenty-four-page insert entitled “Elementare Typographie” (shown in picture), which explained and demonstrated asymmetrical typography to printers, typesetters, and designers. It was printed in red and black and featured avant-garde work along with Tschichold's lucid commentary. -
Die neue Typographie
His 1928 book, Die neue Typographie, vigorously advocated the new ideas. He sought to wipe the slate clean and find a new asymmetrical typography to express the spirit, life, and visual sensibility of the day (pic shown). His objective was functional design by the most straightforward means. Tschichold declared the aim of every typographic work to be the delivery of a message in the shortest, most efficient He emphasized the nature of machine composition and its impact on the design process. -
New approached to typography
1930 The new typography emphasized objective communication and was concerned with machine production. The camera was seen as a vital tool for image making. Much of the photography used in conjunction with the new typography was straightforward and neutral. The role of photography as a graphic communications tool was expanded by Swiss designer/photographer Herbert Matter. While studying painting in Paris under Fernand Léger, Matter became interested in photography and design.
pic shown: -
Immigrants to America
migratation 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. picture shown: Lester Beall, cover for PM, 1937. This cover is evidence of Beall's growing interest in European modernism, and the color and diagonal typography -
Modern Design Movement
When the Nazis closed the Bauhaus in 1933, faculty, students, and alumni dispersed throughout the world and made modern design a truly international movement. -
The prototype for the modern map
The London Underground sponsored a major graphic design innovation when it made a trial printing of a new subway system map (ahown in pic) in 1933. Draftsman Henry C. Beck submitted an unsolicited design proposal that replaced geographic fidelity with a diagrammatic interpretation. showing complex interchanges between routes, was enlarged in proportion to outlying areas. Meandering geographic lines were drawn on a grid of horizontals, verticals, and forty-five-degree diagonals. -
WPA poster project
. 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. Sculptors and painters joined unemployed illustrators and graphic designers in the studios. Many poster designs were by artists, and the project took a strong aesthetic approach to typography, used as both compositional element and message communicator. (Figs. 17–24 and 17–25). -
CCA
In 1936 Egbert Jacobson (1890–1966) was selected as the first director of CCA's new department of design. As with Behrens's design program for AEG early in the century, CCA's new visual signature (and its implementation) was based on two ingredients: the vision of the designer and a supportive client. -
Anton Stankowski, trademark for Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG, 1953. Dynamic equilibrium is achieved by an asymmetrical construction in an implied square, signifying communications transmission and reception.
In 1937 Stankowski moved to Stuttgart, Germany, where he painted and designed for more than five decades. A dialogue is evident between Stankowski's painting and his design. Ideas about color and form from his paintings often find their way into his graphic designs; conversely, wide-ranging form experimentation in search of design solutions seems to have provided shapes and compositional ideas for his fine art. Picture shown: Anton Stankowski, trademark for Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG, 1953. -
Spanish Civil War Posters
In his 1938 account of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell wrote when arriving in Barcelona, “revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud.” These posters became the symbol of antifascist unity and the ongoing growth of the Popular Front. Because posters were one of the principal methods of gaining support, artists associated with the left-wing radicals were critical t -
The isotype movement
The important movement toward developing a “world language without words” began in the 1920s, continued into the 1940s, and still has important influences today. The Isotype concept involves the use of elementary pictographs to convey information. The originator of this effort was Vienna sociologist Otto Neurath (1882–1945). As a child, Neurath marveled at the way ideas and factual information could be conveyed by visual means. -
Peter Behrens and the New Objectivity
The German artist, architect, and designer Peter Behrens (1868–1940) played a major role in charting a course for design in the first decade of the new century. He sought typographic reform, was an early advocate of sans-serif typography, and used a grid system to structure space in his design layouts. He has been called “the first industrial designer” because he designed manufactured products such as streetlamps and teapots. His work for the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, or AEG, is con -
WPA
as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, the federal government created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935. Direct relief for the unemployed was replaced by work opportunities, and billions of dollars were inserted into the economy as an average of more than two million workers were paid from fifteen to ninety dollars per month from 1935 until 1941. -
The War Years
In 1941, as America's entry into the global conflict seemed inevitable, the federal government began to develop propaganda posters to promote production. Charles Coiner became its art consultant as America's colossal defense buildup began. He commissioned Carlu to create one of the finest designs of his career, the famous “America's answer! Production” poster (Fig. 17–30). -
New sans-serif type families
he emerging International Typographic Style was exemplified by several new sans-serif type families designed in the 1950s. The geometric sans-serif styles, mathematically constructed with drafting instruments during the 1920s and 1930s, were rejected in favor of more refined designs inspired by nineteenth-century Akzidenz Grotesk fonts. Picture shown:Berthold Foundry, Akzidenz Grotesk typefaces, 1898–1906. An elegant system of weight contrast is achieved in these pioneering letter-forms. -
International Typographic Style
During the 1950s a design movement emerged from Switzerland and Germany that has been called Swiss design or, more appropriately, the International Typographic Style. The objective clarity of this design movement won converts throughout the world. The visual characteristics of this style include a unity of design achieved by asymmetrical organization of the design elements on a mathematically constructed grid.
Picture shown:Ernst Keller, poster for the Rietberg Museum, 1955. E -
Helvetica
In the mid-1950s, Edouard Hoffman of the HAAS type foundry in Switzerland decided that the Akzidenz Grotesk fonts should be refined and upgraded. Hoffman collaborated with Max Miedinger who executed the designs, and their new sans serif, with an even larger x-height than that of Uvers picture shown:Edouard Hoffman and Max Miedinger, Helvetica typeface, 1961. The basic version of Helvetica released by the Stempel foundry in 1961 is shown, along with some of the variations developed later. -
Corporate Identity and Visual Systems
With this bright view of the future in mind, “Good design is good business” became a rallying cry in the graphic design community during the 1950s. Prosperity and technological development appeared closely linked to the era's increasingly important corporationsDesign was seen as a major way to shape a reputation for quality and reliability.
Picture shown:Giovanni Pintori, Olivetti poster, 1949. Olivetti's products are suggested by a mélange of numbers. -
Informational and scientific graphics
An important milestone in the visual presentation of data was the publication of the World Geo-Graphic Atlas by CCA in 1953. In an introduction, Paepcke spoke of a need for “a better understanding of other peoples and nations.” The designer and editor, Bayer, labored for five years on the project. Once again, Paepcke behaved unlike the conventional businessman, for CCA published a 368-page atlas filled with 120 full-page maps -
The Conceptual Image
Armando Testa, poster for Pirelli, 1954. The strength of a bull elephant is bestowed on the tire by the surrealist technique of image combination. -
National Visions within a Global Dialogue
Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes, and Bob Gill, cover for Graphis, 1965. The record of a parcel's international journey carrying Pentagram work to the magazine also became the package carrying Graphis to its readers. -
Book design
In the area of book design, Zapf's two editions of Manuale Typographicum, published in 1954 and 1968, are outstanding contributions to the art of the book (picture shown). Encompassing eighteen languages and more than a hundred typefaces, these two volumes consist of quotations about the art of typography, with a full-page typographic interpretation for each quotation. combines a great love and understanding of the classical traditions of typography with a twentieth century attitude -
Design for the London underground
Johnston designed a new version of the station signage and logo, using his new typeface on a blue bar in front of a red circle instead of a solid disk. This London Underground logo is still used today (Fig. 12–48), incorporating refinements made in 1972. -
The Digital Revolution—and Beyond
Susan Kare, screen fonts for the Macintosh computer, 1984. The low-resolution dot pattern dictates the letterform design and jagged edges. -
The final years of the Bauhaus
In 1931 the Nazi party dominated the Dessau City Council; it canceled Bauhaus faculty contracts in 1932. Mies van der Rohe tried to run the Bauhaus from an empty telephone factory in Berlin-Steglitz, but Nazi harassment made continuance untenable. The Gestapo demanded the removal of “cultural Bolsheviks” from the school, with Nazi sympathizers as replacements. The faculty voted to dissolve the Bauhaus, and it closed on 10 August 1933 pic shown:Jan Tschichold, poster for a graphic art exhibition -
Koberger's books
By the 1490s most printers had trouble selling large books and had abandoned the huge format of liturgical Bibles. Books with smaller page sizes were more convenient and affordable for private customers Koberger, however, continued to publish and sell large books. -
Postmodern Design
Robert Venturi, competition model for the Football Hall of Fame, 1967. A vast, kinetic electronic graphics display dominates the building, as information replaces structure as the dominant “subject” of architecture. -
Prehistoric
The widely traveled Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425 BCE) wrote that each Babylonian wore a cylinder seal on a cord around the wrist, like a bracelet. Prized as ornaments, status symbols, and unique personal signatures, cylinder seals were even used to mark a damp clay seal on the house door when the occupants were away, to indicate whether burglars had entered the premises.
picture shown: Persian stamp seal, c. 500 BCE. Incised into a precious pale blue quartz called chalcedony -
Celtic book design
Written and designed around 680 CE, the Book of Durrow is the earliest fully designed and ornamented Celtic book. The Book of Durrow was first assumed to have been created in Ireland. However, it is now thought to have come from the British Isles, but written and decorated by Irish scribes. -
The book of Kells
The masterwork of the epoch is the Book of Kells, created at the island monastery of Iona around 800 CE. Countless hours of work were lavished upon individual pages, whose vibrant color and form are in distinct contrast to the stark, reclusive environment and rule of silence found in the monastic scriptorium.
