HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF GRAPHIC DESIGN
Information in pictures are worth a thousand words
You would agree with me that Ancient storytellers understood that pictures are worth a thousand words – from depictions of volcanic eruptions to abstract symbols painted on caves.
The history of graphic design stretches so far back that it encompasses the entire history of art.
In the previous Newsletter, I explained the overview, now we are going to know how graphic design got its start and developed to where it’s at today.
Graphic design is so vast that we cannot imagine living without it in this modern world. It’s been a long journey from stone tools to digital tablets. In short, the history of graphic design is a story that spans the entirety of human existence and it has the power to inspire and inform even modern graphic designers.
EARLY GRAPHIC DESIGN
The first known Graphic design can be traced all the way back to 15,000 BC when the first known visual communications were discovered. These pictographs and symbols are present in the Lascaux caves in southern France. After several thousand years, and you’ll discover the Blau Monument. It’s the first known graphic to use both words and pictures on it.
Of course, these designed pieces are far from what we think of as graphic design today; but they brought about the idea of placing images on surfaces, bringing us towards things like drawings, posters, banners, and more.
PAPER AND PRINTING: 105 AD – 1530 AD
Paper was invented in 105 AD by a Chinese man which led to the concept of printing. Many years later (in 1045 AD), the moveable paper type was invented, which allowed characters to be placed for printing. This led to efficient printing options and more flexible, efficient systems. By 1276, a paper mill arrived in Fabriano, Italy — officially bringing printing to Europe
It was in 1450, two hundred years after that first paper mill arrived in Europe, that the system for printing type in books was considered to be perfected.
The first illustrations in a printed book followed shortly after, in 1460. Seventy years of printing went by before Claude Garamond opened the very first type foundry — in 1530 — which created and sold fonts to printers.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:
The Industrial Revolution hit in the 1760s, which emerge in a new age for graphic design. Innovative technologies began to come into existence to a very known extent. The Industrial Revolution also welcomed the printing press in 1800, a machine that could not only reduce labour by 90% but also doubled the size of paper that could be printed.
GROWTH OF GRAPHIC DESIGN: 1900S
Since the time of the Industrial Revolution, graphic design had begun to find its way into business practices, and in the 1900s, its importance became known.
In 1901, Frank Lloyd Wright released “The Art and Craft of the Machine,” which included basic principles still referenced in modern design. With the growth of the advertising industry and colour printing, businesses began creating logos to help brand their company. With a custom logo design, your company’s brand became more than just a name — it became a striking and memorable piece of art, with colour, shape, and composition working towards making an impression on consumers.
Naturally, graphic design became widely used in advertising and other industries, marking beautiful designs on everything from posters to t-shirts, record covers, and more. As computer technology was invented and released throughout the late 1900s, designers began using digital tools — such as Photoshop, which was first released in 1990 — to create their images. These digital tools revolutionized the field.
Thomas and John Knoll created Photoshop in 1988, with the release of Photoshop 1.0 following in February 1990. It started as a simple raster graphics editor, but has gone on to become the predominant industry standard for digital image editing.
GRAPHIC DESIGN TODAY
Today, graphic design refers mainly to designing visuals for magazines, books, advertisements, and digital posters. This intensive branch of design involves the art form of communicating ideas through visuals and text. Graphic designers still use drawings and paintings in some cases, but much of graphic design today is completed using digital technologies. These modern graphic design skills can be applied to custom logo design, book cover design, magazine layouts, billboard advertisements, clothing design, online banner ads, and much more.
Graphic design has been around for quite some time, but as we view it today in the world of business, it’s only been alive for the last hundred years or so. Over those hundred years, graphic design has allowed space for business and consumerism, grabbing our attention, sparking our interests, or sometimes, blending seamlessly into our surroundings. It’s all around us; unless you’re looking for it, you may not realize how often it shows up in your daily life. Most likely, we can’t even begin to imagine where graphic design will take us in the future
— after all, do you think the people printing words onto paper on the first paper mill could have imagined designing the digital banner ads, web pages, and branded logos we now skim past every day?
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DESIGN SPACE is a newsletter that goes out Tuesdays and Thursdays, the purpose of this newsletter is to teach and build a community of creative people to set them in action till mastery of there field in the design space.
Graphic design is helping to make our world a better place.
Thank you for taking us through history.