is a craft where professionals create visual content to communicate messages. By applying visual hierarchy and page layout techniques, designers use typography and pictures to meet users’ specific needs and focus on the logic of displaying elements in interactive designs, to optimize the user experience.
It is a world were the word impossibilitties do not exist anymore. Everyone has power do create what they really want to create without fealing limited or been limited. Everyday is all about new thing and new of world creations and inventions, the many are actually puting they thought and ideas into practical work.
the origins of graphic design can be traced from the origins of human existence, from the caves of Lascaux, to Rome's Trajan's Column to the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, to the neon lights of Ginza, Tokyo. In "Babylon, artisans pressed cuneiform inscriptions into clay bricks or tablets which were used for construction. The bricks gave information such as the name of the reigning monarch, the builder, or some other dignitary".[11] This was the first known road sign announcing the name of the governor of a state or mayor of the city. The Egyptians developed communication by hieroglyphics that used picture symbols dating as far back as 136 B.C. found on the Rosetta Stone. "The Rosetta stone, found by one of Napoleon's engineers was an advertisement for the Egyptian ruler, Ptolemy as the "true Son of the Sun, the Father of the Moon, and the Keeper of the Happiness of Men" [11] The Egyptians also invented papyrus, paper made from reeds found along the Nile, on which they transcribed advertisements more common among their people at the time.
During the "Dark Ages", from 500 AD to 1450 AD, monks created elaborate, illustrated manuscripts.
In both its lengthy history and in the relatively recent explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries, the distinction between advertising, art, graphic design and fine art has disappeared. They share many elements, theories, principles, practices, languages and sometimes the same benefactor or client. In advertising, the ultimate objective is the sale of goods and services. In graphic design, "the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression, and feeling to artifacts that document the human experience."[12
Graphic design in the United States began with Benjamin Franklin who used his newspaper The Pennsylvania Gazette to master the art of publicity, to promote his own books, and to influence the masses. "Benjamin Franklin's ingenuity gained in strength as did his cunning and in 1737 he had replaced his counterpart in Pennsylvania, Andrew Bradford as postmaster and printer after a competition he instituted and won. He showed his prowess by running an ad in his General Magazine and the Historical Chronicle of British Plantations in America (the precursor to the Saturday Evening Post) that stressed the benefits offered by a stove he invented, named the Pennsylvania Fireplace. His invention is still sold today and is known as the Franklin stove. "[13]
American advertising initially imitated British newspapers and magazines. Advertisements were printed in scrambled type and uneven lines, which made them difficult to read. Franklin better organized this by adding a 14-point type for the first line of the advertisement; although later shortened and centered it, making "headlines". Franklin added illustrations, something that London printers had not attempted. Franklin was the first to utilize logos, which were early symbols that announced such services as opticians by displaying golden spectacles. Franklin taught advertisers that the use of detail was important in marketing their products. Some advertisements ran for 10-20 lines, including color, names, varieties, and sizes of the goods that were offered.
The advent of printing
In 1849, Henry Cole became one of the major forces in design education in Great Britain, informing the government of the importance of design in his Journal of Design and Manufactures. He organized the Great Exhibition as a celebration of modern industrial technology and Victorian design.
From 1891 to 1896, William Morris' Kelmscott Press published some of the most significant of the graphic design products of the Arts and Crafts movement, and made a lucrative business of creating and selling stylish books. Morris created a market for works of graphic design in their own right and a profession for this new type of art. The Kelmscott Press is characterized by an obsession with historical styles. This historicism was the first significant reaction to the state of nineteenth-century graphic design. Morris' work, along with the rest of the Private Press movement, directly influenced Art Nouveau.[15]
During the first half of the ninetieth century, there were diverse styles that were used by various graphic designers. Several examples are Greek, Roman, Classical, Egyptian, and Gothic. The early part of the century has often been regarded as being lackluster for reviving historic styles.[16] However, the latter part of the century would showcase designers using these existing styles as a conceptual framework to expand their own styles. For instance, designer Augustus W.N. Pugin has a quote in the book The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841) that says Gothic is "not a style, but a principle."
Cover of the Thanksgiving 1895 issue of The Chap-Book, designed by Will H. Bradley
Will H. Bradley became one of the notable graphic designers in the late nineteenth-century due to creating art pieces in various Art Nouveau styles. Bradley created a number of designs as promotions for a literary magazine titled The Chap-Book.[17] One of them was a Thanksgiving poster that was finished in 1895. The poster is recognized for including a system of curved lines and forms. The poster also borrows elements from Japanese printing styles by using flat colored planes. Bradley's works have proven to be inspiration as the concept of art posters would become more commonplace by the early twentieth century. In addition, art posters would become a significant aspect in the subject of advertising.
In the 1920s, Soviet constructivism applied 'intellectual production' in different spheres of production. The movement saw individualistic art as useless in revolutionary Russia and thus moved towards creating objects for utilitarian purposes. They designed buildings, theater sets, posters, fabrics, clothing, furniture, logos, menus, etc.[citation needed]
Jan Tschichold codified the principles of modern typography in his 1928 book, New Typography.[22] He later repudiated the philosophy he espoused in this book as fascistic, but it remained influential.[citation needed] Tschichold, Bauhaus typographers such as Herbert Bayer and László Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky greatly influenced graphic design. They pioneered production techniques[citation needed] and stylistic devices used throughout the twentieth century. The following years saw graphic design in the modern style gain widespread acceptance and application.[23]
The post-World War II American economy revealed a greater need for graphic design, mainly in advertising and packaging. The spread of the German Bauhaus school of design to Chicago in 1937 brought a "mass-produced" minimalism to America; sparking "modern" architecture and design. Notable names in mid-century modern design include Adrian Frutiger, designer of the typefaces Univers and Frutiger; Paul Rand, who took the principles of the Bauhaus and applied them to popular advertising and logo design, helping to create a uniquely American approach to European minimalism while becoming one of the principal pioneers of corporate identity, a subset of graphic design. Alex Steinweiss is credited with the invention of the album cover; and Josef Müller-Brockmann, who designed posters in a severe yet accessible manner typical of the 1950s and 1970s era
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