the history of graphic design

A Retrospective Look at Design Theory

• To the average audience the difference between “graphic design” and “art” may seem indistinguishable.

• To better understand this distinction let us first define the two terms…

The art or profession of using design elements (as typography and images) to convey information or create an effect.

Something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings.

Design is…

• One of the first questions you might ask is why should I care about graphic design history?

• One of the best tools to be a great designer is to have a wide visual vocabulary - history gives us that library of elements to pull inspiration from.

• Having a visual library of images stored in your memory, gives you a smarter and more varied toolset.

• The other point is that design is not Darwinian, that is, it doesn't get better over time. Design simply reflects the culture and the period of time in which it was created.

• Prehistoric cave paintings found throughout the Pyrenees regions of southern France and northern Spain are among the world’s first-known works of written communication.

• At least two hundred painted caves date back to 30,000 BCE. But the question is are these simply writings, works of art, or is this the 1st use of design?

• Because these paintings represent written documentation, they a depict knowledge of social hierarchy, hunting techniques and seasonality.

• This is the first findings of visual communication depicted by a primitive culture.

• Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were originally based on the Sumerian script and later adopted into a formal “language” around 3200 BC.

• Egyptian language was not fully understood until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1798 by Napoleon.

• Hieroglyphs which first appeared on papyrus are considered to be the first phonetic language to be scribed on parchment.

• The Papyrus of Ani is one of the earliest papyrus manuscripts compiled within the more commonly known Book of the Dead. This text contained illustrations alongside cursive hieroglyphs which included spells to help the deceased in their afterlife.

• Like today, new inventions during the mid-to-late 19th century changed the way people lived/worked

• Culture shifted from an agrarian agricultural-based society to a more “industrialized” way of life.

• With new machines mass manufacturing began to allow for the duplication of items. Suddenly products were available in huge quantities at faster rates.

• Previously citizens made their own clothes and household items – no two items/texts were identical

• Prior to the Industrial Revolution, valuable texts (ie: Homer, The Iliad, The Bible) were written by hand and had to be traveled to in order to seen.

• Along with competition came the opportunity for widespread mass communication.

• 1454: The printing press was invented by German Johannes Gutenberg who was commissioned by the Holy Roman Empire.

• The Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed in Western Europe using movable metal type, introducing text reproduction to the masses.

• This not only expedited the printing process but permitted written material and ideas to quickly spread, thus reaching a wider audience.

• Similar to today’s marketing efforts, the end objective was asserting influence.

This mass production created competition. This is the genesis of modern advertising and design. In order to

compete, manufacturers turned to posters, placards and ads to convince consumers to use their products.

• Reflects values of that period: clear class structure, sexual restraint, and a strict code of conduct

• Britain was at the height of its empire, with colonies around the globe

• Elaborate ornamentation and mixing of styles from other cultures reinforced the British empire's colonial strength

• Paired with images that reflected idealized nostalgia and moral goodness

• Individual letterforms made of metal had a size limitation – larger headline metal plates would break apart

• American printer, Darius Wells, began making letterforms out of wood

• This was the birth of the American wood type poster

• The handmade quality gave a sense of the human touch, which feels warmer and less clinical

In the late 1800s, society was bombarded with products and inventions that celebrated the machine made. In theory,

factories were making items that made everyone's life better. Every family on the block could now own a well made and identical tea pot. Class distinctions would disappear, and a

unified society would emerge.

The reality was crowded slums, a massive increase in urban pollution, bad quality products, child labor, and the slow

removal of all things hand made. Art Nouveau, or The New Art, was a style that sought to counter this. Art Nouveau forms are typically fluid and flat. The ideas of a return to

natural forms also influenced architects, product designers, and furniture makers.

• 20th Century ushered in a time for new ideas and fresh approaches to design with less clutter

• Lucian Bernhard's approach strips unnecessary items away from a design, to determined the core message

• This solution is the beginning of modern graphic design today that relies on symbols and shapes rather than literal illustration to promote an idea

• The 1914 World War I began in Europe

• Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain all now needed to promote their own message to recruit volunteers, rally the troops, and convince the public that their fight was good, and victory was possible

• There was no radio, television, internet or social media, but new cost efficient printing technologies allowed for mass production of posters, and these became the primary tool for war propaganda

When Russia enters World War I, there were widespread food shortages and there was tremendous inflation. People

questioned why they were fighting in a war for leaders, who neglected their citizens. This disillusionment triggered the

explosion of revolution. In 1918, the people rise up against the Czar, the Russian Army abandons the war against

Germany and the Soviet state is born.

At the onset of the revolution, designers with radical new ideas were welcomed into the movement. And over the next

two decades, created most of the work we now know as Constructivist.

• Perhaps the most important influence on contemporary design is the Bauhaus

• The Bauhaus was a school in Germany training designers in all fields

• The guiding principle at the Bauhaus was that design could make the world a better place

• Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in 1919. Like the leaders of the other movements at the time, he believed the old order of aristocracy and corruption had led Germany into the catastrophic war. Design would create a new society and a better way of life

• Unemployment during the Depression was as high as 25 percent.

• Franklin Roosevelt initiated a new federal program, the Works Progress Administration, or W.P.A.

• The W.P.A. employed millions of Americans. They built dams, bridges, roads, and federal buildings.

• Designers were urged to speak to the masses in the least elitist way possible.

• Adolf Hitler, was appointed Chancellor of Germany, on January 30th, 1933. After establishing the Nazi party, they immediately began a mass media campaign to rule the German people.

• By 1934, the Nazi propaganda machine used films, books and graphic design to communicate it’s message.

• Nazi party adopted many of the modernist ideas: simple messages, iconography and strong forms.

• After the war, the International Style, or Swiss Typography, predominated European graphic design.

• It relied on order, mathematical proportions, and a rigid grid structure. A preference for clarity and structure based on rigid rules led to Swiss typography.

• A grid structure was used to organize elements. Typography and visual elements were scaled mathematically.

• By 1966, San Francisco was the epicenter of the counter-culture revolution.

• Designers began making posters that followed a style that was fluid and complex.

• The point at the time was to reject legible Swiss modernism in favor for a more organic and a less rigid experience

• The Fillmore poster designers rejected hard edged modernism and consumer driven culture in an anti-capitalism movement.

Enter Saul Bass…

In Psycho, here again Saul setup a visual narrative by representing a broken title sequence with the use of angles and lines to convey a sense of unease. Something is not right and we as the audience immediately get a sense of urgency and alarm. The entire Bass/Hitchcock also is shrouded in controversy surrounding Bass’s contribution to what is arguably the most famous scene in U.S. cinema - the shower scene in Psycho. Serious discussion over Bass’s contribution during collaboration, from novel and script to musical score - remains unsolved, as many suspect he was the one who first conceptualized the scene, not Hitchcock.

Saul Bass’ poster for a Man with a Golden Arm (1955) with a jagged arm and off-kilter typography, starkly communicates the protagonist's struggle with heroin addiction. Bass's iconic Vertigo (1958) poster, with its stylized figures sucked down into the nucleus of a spiral vortex, captures the anxiety and

disorientation central to the film. His poster for Anatomy of a Murder (1959), featuring the silhouette of a corpse jarringly dissected into seven pieces, makes both a pun on the film’s title and captures the moral ambiguities of the story.

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Academy Award winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos (including AT&T and United Airlines). During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's most prominent filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. His work continues to inspire the work of others even today, with films like Catch Me If You Can, and AMC’s TV series Mad Men.

• Carmen Jones (1954)

• The Big Knife (1955)

• The Man with the Golden

Arm (1955)

• The Racers (1955)

• The Seven Year Itch (1955)

• The Shrike (1955)

• Around the World in Eighty

Days (1956)

• Storm Center (1956)

• Attack (1956)

• Edge of the City (1957)

• Saint Joan (1957)

• The Pride and the Passion

(1957)

• The Young Stranger (1957)

• Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

• Cowboy (1958)

• Vertigo (1958)

• The Big Country (1958)

• Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

• North by Northwest (1959)

• Psycho (1960)

• Spartacus (1960)

• The Facts of Life (1960)

• Exodus (1960)

• Ocean's 11 (1960)

• West Side Story (1961)

• Something Wild (1961)

• Advise and Consent (1962)

• Walk on the Wild Side

(1962)

• The Victors (1963)

• Nine Hours to Rama (1963)

• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad

World (1963)

• The Cardinal (1963)

• In Harm's Way (1965)

• Bunny Lake Is Missing

(1965)

• Grand Prix (1966)

• Not with My Wife, You Don't!

(1966)

• Seconds (1966)

• Such Good Friends (1971)

• That's Entertainment, Part II

(1976)

• Broadcast News (1987)

• Big (1988)

• The War of the Roses

(1989)

• Goodfellas (1990)

• Cape Fear (1991)

• Doc Hollywood (1991)

• Mr. Saturday Night (1992)

• The Age of Innocence

(1993)

• Higher Learning (1995)

• Casino (1995)

• Alcoa (1963)

• AT&T Corporation (1969)

• Avery International (1975)

• Boys & Girls Clubs of

America (1978)

• Celanese (1965)

• Continental Airlines

(1968)[11]

• Dixie (1969)

• Frontier Airlines (1978)

• Fuller Paints (1962)

• Geffen Records (1980)

• General Foods (1984)

• Girl Scouts of the USA

(1978)

• Japan Energy Corporation

(1993)

• J. Paul Getty Trust (1993)

• Kibun Foods (1984)

• Kose Cosmetics (1991)

• Lawry's Foods (1959)

• Minami Sports (1991)

• Minolta (1978)

• NCR Corporation (1996)

• Quaker Oats (1969)

• Rockwell International

(1968)

• Security Pacific Bank (1966)

• United Airlines (1974)

• United Way (1972)

• US postage stamp, "Science

and Industry" (1983)[12]

• Warner Communications

(1974)

• Wienerschnitzel (1978)

• Wesson Oil (1964)

• YWCA (1988)

• With the advent of modern technology, mobile devices and the internet – are we becoming immune to the “Swiss” type style?

• What trends do you witness in today’s design world, how is culture shifting?