History of graphic design
Tony fry says that
1. History is selective
2. History is affective
this is because history isn't a straight document of the past its selective and you will choose what to believe and select to tell. Its effective because once your summaries the history it goes on to condition peoples activity, they engage with it and it makes people behave in a certain way based on what went on in the past.
Core books:
megs history of graphic design- classic reference
graphic design a new history
looking closer series
megs history of graphic design...
this book was the first time the words history and graphic design were used together, after it came into uni there was a debate on how to treat it as a subject and there was nothing in place until 1985- when Meggs wrote the book, it was a distinctive book because it was an on going project, however Meggs died in 2002 and the book was took over by Alston Purvis.Steven Heller a very influential design critic commented, "I thought the Meggs fellow had actually made history". It gives you an idea of the constructive idea of history it’s about assembling it and telling people about the important people like Meggs.Meggs approach was to attempt to create a systematic graphic design history and did not depend on anecdotes, however it can be limited in some ways.
1. invention of mark making, writing and printing
First came mark making with the help of Lascaux cave paintings 15000- 10000 BC- its situated in the urban environment, not just that it's a mark making practice but that’s its public and embedded within the environment
Then the cylinder steal creating images for stamping 1650-12000 BC, this is related to the early invention of print and its important to recognise that its technological. The close tie with the technology that makes things and that materials that they produce is the effect on society.
Then the illuminated manuscript, decorated with gold/silver light, linking to religion and technology usually AD 500- AD 1000. This was important from a technology perspective because it makes use of metallic pigments and paints; it was more about decoration but using silver and gold leaf, within the text. They were supposed to have religious significance, religious text would be decorated in this waybut there was also a significance of gold being precious because it was a highly reflective light surface and worked as a light source. Back then furniture was made using gold to reflect as much light as possible. In contemporary graphics there is still a massive interest in finding new inks with interesting qualities. It makes you notice infinity between a technology expression and a graphic idea; a lot of innovation is employment of technical invasion.
2. Evolution of printing and type
then came the evolution of printing and type, emerging because of the technology and aesthetic history that are tied together and the social history like the cave paintings, it was a coordination of social activity that was taking place.When these things are put together you start to get what we see as graphic design, commercialised.This idea started in the 19th century and progressed through styles into the 20th centurye.g. arts and craft, art nouveau, modernism, new typography etc. This is history we have visited these movements from the graphic design emergence story taught in last years theory sessions.
William and Morris interior from the arts and crafts can be used as an example, the arts ad crafts movement wasn't about production of posters, and they showed them as part of people’s home environment. The aim was to condition the home environment and about naturalistic symbols and patterns linking to the idea that graphic design gets inside a culture.
Going back to meggs, Heller believes that its limited because it was the dawn of digital age with invention of apple mac and it throws up the idea of modern vs. post modern and that design is moving forward. Retro designers were using technology to reproduce contemporary art, the computers were aiding us. Stephen Heller looks at the covers of books and the appropriateness, they are full of historical cliché to do with time periods. Because meggs is an open series of books and on going, he tries to deal with everything in the end; the new additions try to address the digital age on a section called revival.
Graphic design a new history (2007)
This is a book that sets out to write an alternative history of graphic design and delivers a false promise.Its targets are meggs and Hollis who did a condensed version of meggs original books. Design history has been too often presented thought a series of styles and individual achievements, devoid of social context.This book attempts to be new. The profession was established when designed printed material came separate from the task of printing it and it sees graphics as a representation of the industrial world with quick coverage of printing press-shorter than meggs.We get the same history as we did from Meggs but with less history and more of a story, h conforms to history and changes a few small parts.It stresses the importance of social context and how modes were integrated into political concerns like art deco and its links to colonialism as a form of propaganda.
Alice twemlow and Lorraine wild created 'graphic design a new history'they say that we've lead to expect a lot but what were given is old chestnuts, repeated things over and over, a little twist with social context but is still only a straight forward stream of graphic historytheir biggest criticism is that its very narrow centred on UK US and a bit of Europe, however doesn't mention countries like Poland, we don’t know what’s going on in those countries.
The biggest criticism of the book overall was that there is a lack of interest in anything graphic designers write or how we discuss graphic design in 1985 without talking about eye magazinethe changing nature of communication with in the design industry.
They created the looking closer series full of critical writing in design arguing about design and textual design series.
Book 3
In book 3 appeared an essay on 'the crystal goblet' this was about the birth of modernism and they were famous for saying that the invention of the glass goblet is almost the pure modernist invention because its purely about function, aesthetics are transparent and functional to drink from it tries to be invisible, the metaphor for modernism.
Book 5
In book 5 was an essay abut the de criminalisation of ornaments and the onset of computer and technology, a whole new kind of decoration had been formed, harking back to William Morris, and it being heavily decretive. Bringing us back to the idea of digital crafts.Both histories ended up having to think of a new digital position.
