Graphic Design

ART 100

UNDERSTANDING VISUAL CULTURE

what is graphic design?

visual communication using combinations of text and images,

organized to produce maximum impact

a modern design field of relatively recent origin, arising as

mass print communications reached ever wider audiences

earlier, the printer would design the printed material, choose

the font, etc.

1820 to present, the graphic designer handles only the

design aspects, the printer handles only the production

aspects

so, graphic design today is a profession, but if you've ever

made a flyer or a sign for a garage sale, you have done it

not professionally designed

early printed formats

broadsheet/broadside:

a single sheet that was used to print announcements or

notices on one side only.

posted publicly and read/viewed by all

the printer made the design decisions

Bibles and other religious texts such as prayerbooks

some treatises on science, law, government, etc. but this

will increase later

Erhard Schoen,

broadsheet titled "A scary

story of the devil and a terrible

woman that happened at

Schilta during Holy Week

1533.”

woodcut

Georg Mack the Elder

Broadsheet recording the sighting of

a comet at Nürnberg in November

1577

woodcut, colored single leaf

end of the 18th century

a new set of developments arise

print is believed to play a key role in these developments

Commerce, opinion, and coffee in England, 1798; the home of Lloyd's list

shaping a public sphere

what makes a sphere public?

people come together who are not necessarily from the same

background

different classes represented

different occupations

different points of view

but all equal as one voice in the conversation (do not have to

defer to your social superiors)

a space of heterogeneous opinion

coffeehouse vs. salon

COFFEEHOUSE

men only

public; open to all ranks for

price of a coffee

(mixed by social class)

SALON

men and women

by invitation only, so more

exclusive

(mixed by gender and

profession)

Salon conversation

etching

1797

France

the print seller

From W.S.Lewis ‘Scrapbook of Advertisements’ at the Lewis Walpole Library.

[Pasted into back cover, a ‘miseries’ short piece clipped from an unidentified

newspaper or magazine. Undated (circa 1790?).]

LONDON STREETS, their UNWALKABILITY and other deliciae.

“In passing along a street well frequented with carriages, but narrow in

the footpath, you come to that barrier called a Print-Shop. Besides the

usual three rows of gapers, you have here an agglomeration of two or

three journeyman bakers, with [sic] heir baskets reaching two feet

beyond their shoulders, the whole group of dutiful admirers of the arts

surmounted by a coal-heaver, whose feet fill up the last inch of the

pavement, and whose pointed shovel project three feet over it. At

every attempt you make to double this promontory, the pole of a

coach, ready to bob you under the chin, corrects your impatience, and

keeps you within the sphere of the fine arts.”

James Gillray

Very Slippy Weather, Indeed!

1808

Vicesimus Knox, "On the Effects of Caricatures

exhibited at the Windows of Printsellers,"

Winter Evenings (London: 2 vols. Charles

Dilly, 3d. ed., 1795): 139-144.

“The lower classes in London, it might be supposed, have not time,

inclination, or ability, to read much, but their minds are filled with ideas, not

only by the multitude of occurrences, but also by the prints that are

obtruded on their notice, in the windows of shops conspicuously situated in

the most frequented streets. And I believe, they often receive impressions,

either favourable, or unfavourable, to their honesty and happiness as they

loiter at a window, with a burden on their backs, and gape, unmindful of

their toil, at the comical productions of the ingenious designer.”

Vicesimus Knox, "On the Effects of Caricatures

exhibited at the Windows of Printsellers,"

Winter Evenings (London: 2 vols. Charles

Dilly, 3d. ed., 1795): 139-144.

“ The mode of ridiculing by prints has some advantages

over that by writing and argument. Its effect is

instantaneous; and they who cannot read, or have not

sense enough to comprehend, a refined piece of raillery,

are able to see a good caricature, and to receive a

powerful impression from it.”

stereotype,

caricature,

satire

Charles Philipon, Les Poires,

Charivari, 1832

Sir John Everett Millais

“A Child’s World”

1886

“Bubbles” Pears Soap ad, 1890

“Graphic design is never just there.”

“Graphic artifacts always serve a

purpose and contain an agenda, no

matter how neutral or natural they

appear to be.”

“Someone is addressing someone

else, for some reason, through every

object of designed communication.”

Johanna Drucker and Emily McVarish, Graphic Design

History: A Critical Guide, 2d ed., Pearson, 2013: xiii-xvii.