THE PRINTING PROCESS
Printing is an essential part of graphic design, and art in general, but in order to understand where modern printing processes and terms came from, it is important to look into the past. The first form of printing was cave paintings; rocks were used to leave marks on the walls of caves. These paintings are said to tell mythological stories, or perhaps even contained references to the social structure of the tribe to which the artist belonged. Petraglyphs followed the cave paintings. These were simple characters carved into stone and led to the use of hieroglyphs by the Egyptians. The Egyptians were the first civilisation to combine pictures using rebuses to make words.
The Greeks eventually created an alphabet, based on the basic shapes of the Phonecian alphabet, in which they used characters to represent portions of words. The Greek civilisation were famous for being great stone masons, and thus had the tools to carve these letters they had created into stone. Using a chisel and stone, the letter carving resulted in the creation of serifs, due to the manner in which they were carved. The Greeks also revolutionised handwriting, introducing ascenders and descenders into their writing, while the Roman civilisation altered the alphabet, introducing number systems and punctuation.
We now come to the Chinese civilisation, who revolutionised the way that letters and words were written and displayed. The Chinese developed an alphabet in which one symbol represented one whole word. This is known as a logogram. They also then invented a superior form of paper, and woodblock printing, which acted as a basis for all developments in printing methods which followed. This form of printing used simple principles of carving individual characters into small blocks of wood, removing the areas of the small blocks which were intended to be 'white'. Using this concept, a German man named Johannes Gutenberg, used moveable letter blocks to print a whole book, The Gutenberg Bible. This was a great improvement on the original method of hand writing the whole book.
The letter blocks were cast in metal, specifically lead. This is an explanation for the modern term leading in references to typefaces, it relates to the vertical space between lines of type. Also, at this time, other terms were introduced, kerning refers to the space between individual letters, whilst tracking is the overall and uniform spacing of a whole word or block of words.
With advancement in the printing process, came advancement in the materials on which to print. It went from sheepskin parchment, to the modern day wood pulp based paper, which is more environmentally friendly, cheaper, and generally more environmentally responsible, as it can be recycled.
Different methods of printing where also experimented with and developed; these include intaglio printing and lithography. Intaglio printing was a process of printing which involved etching or engraving into a metal plate, filling the grooves with ink, and pressing paper over the top to transfer the image. This method allowed for more detail to be included, such as crosshatching in images, and more tonal effects. While lithography used the physical properties of oil and ink, relying on the fact that the oil will repel the ink, marking all other places except those which contain oil or animal fat. A stone was generally used to create the lithographic prints, and many stones were needed to include colour in the prints created.
The development of all of these methods of printing, plus experimentation with other processes lead to the invention of the rotary press in 1843, which in turn lead to the development of the typewriter 30 years later in 1873. The typewriter revolutionised the whole process of printing and composing documents to be printed. The typewriter printed using the principles of linotype, with individual letter plates that transfer the ink onto paper, when the corresponding keys are typed.
The computer was introduced quite a while after the typewriter, modern ink or laser printers were then attached, and the rest is history!
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The Industrial Revolution was a period of time from the 18th to 19th centuries, which marked a rapid and widespread introduction of new processes and machines in the labour, transport, and agriculture process. Since more and more products were being manufactured during this period, the demand for promotion of these products also rose at the same rapid rate. This need for promotion led to the introduction of advertising as a whole, and thus lead to the widespread use of posters for promotion in that era. This means, that without the occurrence of the industrial revolution, the concept of graphic design would not have been developed. in fact, many of the mechanical and design concepts which we all use today, came about as a result of the industrial revolution.
VICTORIAN DESIGN
The beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria, marked the beginning of the Victorian era of design. This period of design, can be summed up using three words: sentimental, nostalgic, and romantic. These themes were prevalent in the designs produced in this era, along with certain elements which could be seen as the basics required to create a design in this period. These were: elements of symmetry, architectural framing, curved typography, borders, and banners. The designs from this time were generally very intricate and ornate, cluttered, and busy.
Below is an example of Victorian design, a Coca-Cola advertisement. Notice the ornate borders, and curved typeface used in the advertisement. This advert is quite visually appealing, and in my personal opinion, a fine example of design from the Victorian era.
