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Jun 18, 1000
1 The Invention of Writing
It is not known precisely when or where Homo sapiens, the biological species of conscious, thinking creatures, emerged. As the search for our prehistoric origins continues, the early innovations of our ancestors have been pushed back further in time. It is believed that we evolved from a species that lived in the southern part of Africa. These early hominids ventured out onto the grassy plains and into caves as the forests in that part of the world slowly disappeared. -
Jun 18, 1000
Cave painting
1–1. Cave painting from Lascaux, c. 15,000–10,000 BCE. Random placement and shifting scale signify prehistoric people's lack of structure and sequence in recording their experiences. -
Jun 18, 1000
1–2.
Found carved and sometimes painted on rocks in the western United States, these petroglyphic figures, animals, and signs are similar to those found all over the world. -
Jun 18, 1000
1–4
Engraved drawing on a deer antler, c. 15,000 BCE. This prehistoric image is shown in a cast made by rolling the antler onto clay. -
Jun 18, 1000
Cuneiform
As early scribes developed their written language to function in the same way as their speech, the need to represent spoken sounds not easily depicted arose.
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Adverbs, prepositions, and personal names often could not be adapted to pictographic representation. Picture symbols began to represent the sounds of the objects depicted instead of the objects themselves. Cuneiform became rebus writing, which is pictures and/or pictographs representing words and syllables with the same or simil -
Jun 18, 1000
hieroglyphics
By the time King Menes unified the land of Egypt and formed the First Dynasty around 3100 BCE, a number of Sumerian inventions had reached Egypt, including the cylinder seal, architectural designs of brick, decorative design motifs, and the fundamentals of writing. Unlike the Sumerians, whose pictographic writing evolved into abstract cuneiform, the Egyptians retained their picture-writing system, called hieroglyphics (Greek for “sacred carving,” after the Egyptian for “the god's words”) -
Jun 18, 1001
3–4
Li-shu tablet of Hua Shan Pagoda, example of Han style from Eastern Han Dynasty (165 CE). Each character displays well-balanced and elegant strokes. -
Jun 18, 1001
3–7.
Li Fangying (1696–1755), from Album of Eight Leaves, ink on paper, Qing dynasty, 1744. The design of the total page, with the bamboo bending out into the open space in contrast to the erect column of writing, ranks among the most outstanding examples of Chinese art. -
Jun 18, 1001
3–9
This copy of Wang Xizhi's Lantingji Xu includes twenty-eight rows and 324 characters. It is generally believed that the original work was buried with Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang dynasty. This copy retains the essence of the original and is considered the best extant version. -
Period: Jun 19, 1001 to Jun 20, 1002
2 Alphabets
An alphabet is a set of visual symbols or characters used to represent the elementary sounds of a spoken language. They can be connected and combined to make visual configurations signifying sounds, syllables, and words uttered by the human mouth. The hundreds of signs and symbols required by cuneiform and hieroglyphics were eventually replaced by twenty or thirty easily learned elementary signs. -
Jun 20, 1001
2-1
This diagram displays several evolutionary steps of Western alphabets. The controversial theory linking early Cretan pictographs to alphabets is based on similarities in their appearance. -
Jun 21, 1001
2-2
One of the most interesting and perplexing relics of the Minoan civilization is the Phaistos Disk (Fig. 2–2), which was unearthed on Crete in 1908. Lacking precedent or parallel, this flat terra-cotta disk, 16.5 centimeters (6 inches) in diameter, has pictographic and seemingly alphabetic forms imprinted on both sides in spiral bands. Typelike stamps were used to impress each character into wet clay; thus the principle of movable type could have been used in a Western culture as early as 2000 BC -
Jun 29, 1001
Greek alphabet
Timotheus, The Persians, papyrus manuscript, fourth century BCE. This excellent example of the Greek alphabet shows the symmetrical form and even visual rhythm that evolved. These qualities made the Greek alphabet the prototype for subsequent developments. -
Jun 30, 1001
Latin alpahbet
The Latin alphabet came to the Romans from Greece by way of the ancient Etruscans, a people whose civilization on the Italian peninsula reached its height during the sixth century BCE. After the letter G was designed by one Spurius Carvilius (c. 250 BCE) to replace the Greek letter Z (zeta), which was of little value to the Romans, the Latin alphabet contained twenty-one letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R (which evolved as a variation of P), S, T, V and X. -
Jul 18, 1001
latin alphabet
Following the Roman conquest of Greece during the first century BCE, the Greek letters Y and Z were added to the end of the Latin alphabet because the Romans were appropriating Greek words containing these sounds. -
Aug 18, 1001
Chinese calligraphy
Similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mayan writing in Central America, the Chinese writing system is a purely visual language. It is not alphabetical, and every symbol is composed of a number of differently shaped lines within an imaginary square. Legend holds that Chinese was first written about 1800 BCE by Tsang Chieh, who was inspired to invent writing by contemplating the claw marks of birds and footprints of animals. -
Aug 18, 1001
3–5.
Rubbing from stone tablet. Two stone tablets, which still stand in front of the Dayan Pagoda in the city of Xi'an (the capital of the Tang dynasty), are excellent examples of chen-shu. The tablets are called Yanta Sheng Jiao Xu, written by a notable minister of the Tang dynasty, Chu Sui Liang (597–658 CE), who was also an outstanding calligrapher. -
Aug 18, 1001
The invention of paper
Dynastic records attribute the invention of paper to the eunuch and high governmental official Ts'ai Lun, who reported his invention to Emperor Ho in 105 CE. Whether Ts'ai Lun truly invented paper, perfected an earlier invention, or patronized its invention is not known. He was, however, deified as the god of the papermakers. -
Sep 18, 1001
The discovery of printing
Printing, a major breakthrough in human history, was invented by the Chinese. The first form was relief printing: the spaces around an image on a flat surface are cut away, the remaining raised surface is inked, and a sheet of paper is placed over the surface and rubbed to transfer the inked image to the paper. Two hypotheses have been advanced about the invention of printing. One is that the use of engraved seals to make identification imprints evolved into printing. -
Sep 18, 1001
3–13
Chinese relief tomb sculpture and rubbing, northern Qi dynasty (550–577 CE). Illustrative images from the life of the deceased are captured in stone and with ink on paper. -
Jun 18, 1300
Celtic book design
Celtic design is abstract and extremely complex; geometric linear patterns weave, twist, and fill a space with thick visual textures, and bright, pure colors are used in close juxtaposition. This Celtic craft tradition of intricate, highly abstract decorative patterns was applied to book design in the monastic scriptoria, and a new concept and image of the book emerged. A series of manuscripts containing the four narratives of the life of Christ are the summit of Celtic book design. -
Jun 19, 1300
Illuminated Manuscripts
The vibrant luminosity of gold leaf, as it reflected light from the pages of handwritten books, gave the sensation of the page being literally illuminated; thus, this dazzling effect gave birth to the term illuminated manuscript. Today this name is used for all decorated and illustrated handwritten books produced from the late Roman Empire until printed books replaced manuscripts after typography was developed in Europe around 1450. -
Jun 18, 1301
Spanish pictorial expressionism
Coronation Gospels, opening pages of Saint Mark's Gospel, c. 800 CE. The author sits in a natural landscape on a page of deep crimson-stained parchment; the facing page is stained a deep purple with gold lettering. -
Jun 18, 1302
Romanesque and Gothic manuscripts
The Romanesque period (c. 1000–1150 CE) saw renewed religious fervor and even stronger feudalism. Europeans launched some ten crusades in a vigorous effort to conquer the Holy Lands. Monasticism reached its peak, and large liturgical books, including Bibles, Gospels, and psalters, were produced in the booming scriptoria. The fourth angel from the Beatus of Fernando and Sancha, 1047 CE. The trumpet, wings, and tail bring an angular counterppoint to the horizontal bands of color. -
Jun 18, 1302
Judaic manuscripts
After the Babylonian Exile in 587 BCE, and again after the Romans crushed Jewish revolts in 70 CE and 135 CE, the Jewish population in Israel was dispersed. Double-page spread from the Mainz Haggadah, copied by Moses ben Nathan Oppenheim in 1726. The images depict Mount Sinai, and Pharaoh and his army drowning in the Red Sea. The layout implies the melodic rhythm of a buoyant Passover song through spacing and symbols. -
Jun 18, 1334
Late medieval illuminated manuscripts
During the transitional decades, as the medieval era yielded to the European Renaissance, the production of illuminated manuscripts for private use became increasingly important. Page spread from the Savoy Book of Hours, Paris c. 1334–1340. Illuminated and written in French and Latin and on parchment. -
Jun 18, 1400
5 Printing Comes to Europe
Xylography is the technical term for the relief printing from a raised surface that originated in Asia. Typography is the term for printing with independent, movable, and reusable bits of metal or wood, each of which has a raised letterform on one face. French watermark designs, fifteenth century. These mermaid designs were produced by bent wire attached to the mold used in making paper. -
Oct 18, 1400
Early European block printing
Jack of Diamonds, woodblock playing card, c. 1400. The flat, stylized design conventions of playing cards have changed little in over five hundred years. Visual signs to designate the suits began as the four classes of medieval society. Hearts signified the clergy; spades (derived from the Italian spada [sword]) stood for the nobility; the leaflike club represented the peasantry; and diamonds denoted the burghers. -
Jun 18, 1425
Early European block printing
Woodblock print of Saint Christopher, 1423. The unknown illustrator depicted the legendary saint, a giant who carried travelers safely across a river, bearing the infant Christ. The inscription below reads: “In whatsoever day thou seest the likeness of St. Christopher/in that same day thou wilt at least from death no evil blow incur/1423.” One of the earliest dated European block prints, this image effectively uses changing contour-line width to show form. -
Jun 18, 1444
Movable typography in Europe
These early-nineteenth-century engravings illustrate Gutenberg's system for casting type. A steel punch is used to stamp an impression of the letterform into a softer brass matrix. After the matrix is slipped into the bottom of the two-part type mold, the mold is filled with the molten lead alloy to cast a piece of type. After the lead alloy cools, the type mold is opened and the type is removed. -
Jun 18, 1450
Copperplate engraving
The Master of the Playing Cards, The Three of Birds, c. 1450. Masterly design and placement of the images in the space enhanced the sureness of the drawing and use of line for tonal effects. -
Jun 18, 1457
color printing
Fust and Schoeffer, page detail from Psalter in Latin, 1457. The red and blue initials are the earliest example of color printing in Europe. -
Jun 18, 1460
Origins of the illustrated typographic book
Block printers and woodcarvers feared typographic printing as a serious threat to their livelihood, but early in the evolution of the typographic book, Bamberg printer Albrecht Pfister began to illustrate his books with woodblock prints. Albrecht Pfister (printer), illustration from the second edition of Der Ackerman aus Böhmen (Death and the Ploughman), c. 1463. Death sits as a king on his throne, flanked by a widower and his child on the left and the deceased wife on the right. -
Jun 18, 1467
Typography spreads to Germany
Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, page from Augustine of Hippo's City of God, 1467. This is the first printed volume of St. Augustine's City of God and one of four books printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco. This initial page is elegantly decorated with gold leaf and colors, illuminated initials, and a portrait of St. Augustine. The text is in the second typeface designed and cast by Sweynheym and Pannartz. -
Jun 19, 1470
Graphic design of the Italian Renaissance
It was not Florence, where the wealthy Medicis scorned printing as inferior to manuscript books, but Venice—a center of commerce and Europe's gateway to trade with the eastern Mediterranean, India, and East Asia—that led the way in Italian typographic book design. -
Jun 19, 1475
Incipit officium beate Marie virginus secundum consuetudinem romane curie
Nicolas Jenson, pages from Incipit officium beate Marie virginus secundum consuetudinem romane curie (Little Office of the Virgin Mary), 1475. -
Jun 18, 1486
Nuremberg becomes a printing center
Because printing required a huge capital investment and a large trained labor force, it is not surprising that by the end of the 1400s Nuremberg, which had become central Europe's most prosperous center of commerce and distribution. Erhard Reuwich (illustrator), illustration from Peregrinationes in Montem Syon 1486. Panoramic vistas present accurate depictions of the cities visited on a journey from Germany to Jerusalem. This 4 page spread depicts the city of Methoni in Greece -
Jun 18, 1493
Nuremberg
Anton Koberger, pages from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493. This image depicts the city of Nuremberg. -
Jun 18, 1521
Typography spreads from Germany
Johannes Grunenberg (printer) and Lucas Cranach the Elder (illustrator), pages from Passional Christi und Antichristi, 1521. Here Christ is depicted driving the moneylenders from the temple. Italy, which was at the forefront of Europe's slow transition from the feudal medieval world to the Renaissance, sponsored the first printing press outside Germany. Although fifteenth-century -
Jun 19, 1522
Italian writing masters
Although typographic printing produced an inevitable decline in manuscript writing, it also created new opportunities for master calligraphers. The rapid growth of literacy created a huge demand for writing masters, and the attendant expansion of government and commerce created a need for expert calligraphers who could draft important state and business documents. -
Jun 19, 1522
La operina da imparare di scrivere littera cancellaresca,
Lodovico degli Arrighi, pages from La operina da imparare di scrivere littera cancellaresca, 1522. The ample spaces between lines leave room for the plume-shaped ascenders waving to the right in elegant counterpoint to the descenders sweeping gracefully to the left. -
Jun 19, 1528
De Proportíoníbus Duo
Simon de Colines (printer) and Oronce Finé (designer), title page for Jean Fernel's (Ioannis Fernelli) De Proportíoníbus Duo, 1528. In this title-page border, Finé used carefully measured strapwork, symbolic figures representing areas of knowledge, and a criblé background. De Colines's typography combines with this border to create a masterpiece of Renaissance page design. -
Jun 18, 1532
The further development of the German illustrated book
Albrecht Dürer, woodcut from De Symmetria Partium Humanorum Corporum (Treatise on Human Proportions), 1532. To assist his fellow artists, Dürer offers a “through-the-looking-grid” device as an aid to drawing. -
Jun 18, 1539
German Illustrated Book
Hans Lufft (printer) and Lucas Cranach the Younger (illustrator), pages from Fabian von Auerswald's Ringer-Kunst (Art of Wrestling), 1539. Lufft printed Cranach's eighty-seven woodcuts without the usual border, enabling them to move dynamically on the page. The centered captions above and the thick rule below provide balance in this predominantly pictorial book. -
Jun 19, 1546
Poliphili
Jacques Kerver, typographic page from Poliphili, 1546. Bracketed by white space, Kerver's heading uses three sizes of capital and lowercase type, all capitals, and italic to bring variety to the design. -
Jun 19, 1559
The seventeenth century
The seventeenth century was a relatively quiet time for graphic design innovation. An abundant stock of ornaments, punches, matrixes, and woodblocks from the 1500s was widely available, so there was little incentive for printers to commission new graphic materials. An awakening of literary genius occurred during the seventeenth century, however. Jean de Tournes (printer) and Bernard Salomon (illustrator), title page from Ovid's La vita et metamorfoseo (Metamorphoses), -
8 An Epoch of Typographic Genius
After a drought of graphic-design creativity during the 1600s, the eighteenth century was an epoch of typographic originality. In 1692 the French king Louis XIV, who had a strong interest in printing, ordered a committee of scholars to develop a new typeface for the Imprimerie Royale, the royal printing office established in 1640 to restore quality. The new letters were to be designed by “scientific” principles. -
Art Nouveau
Increased trade and communication between Asian and European countries during the late nineteenth century caused a cultural collision; both East and West experienced change as a result of reciprocal influences. Asian art provided European and North American artists and designers with approaches to space, color, drawing conventions, and subject matter that were radically unlike Western traditions. This revitalized graphic design during the last decade of the nineteenth century. -
Romain du Roi
Louis Simonneau, master alphabets for the Romain du Roi, c. 1700. These copperplate engravings were intended to establish graphic standards for the new alphabet. -
Romain du Roi,
Louis Simonneau, construction of the letters G and H for the Romain du Roi, c. 1700. -
Period: to
Graphic design of the rococo era
The fanciful French art and architecture that flourished from about 1720 until around 1770 is called rococo. Florid and intricate, rococo ornament is composed of S- and C-curves
with scrollwork, tracery, and plant forms derived from nature, classical and oriental art, and medieval sources. Light pastel colors were often used with ivory white and gold in asymmetrically balanced designs. -
The imperial designs of Louis René Luce
A type designer and punch cutter at the Imprimerie Royale, Louis René Luce (d. 1773), achieved an imperial graphic design statement. During the three decades from 1740 until 1770, Luce designed a series of types that were narrow and condensed, with serifs as sharp as spurs. Engraved borders were being widely used and required a second printing: first the text was printed and then, in a second run of the same sheets, the borders. -
Caslon
Caslon worked in a tradition of Old Style roman typographic design that had begun over two hundred years earlier during the Italian Renaissance. Benjamin Franklin (printer). M. T. Cicero's Cato Major or his Discourse of Old-Age: With Explanatory Notes, 1744. Cato Major is one of the first classics of Latin literature to have been translated and printed in the American colonies. Franklin was an avid admirer of Caslon's fonts and used them extensively. -
Baskerville
John Baskerville, the Gravestone Slate, undated. This demonstration stone showed potential customers young Baskerville's carving skill and range of lettering styles. -
Period: to
9 Graphic Design and the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution, which is usually said to have occurred first in England between 1760 and 1840, was a radical process of social and economic change. Energy was a major impetus for the conversion from an agricultural society to an industrial one. -
The illuminated printing of William Blake
During the waning years of the eighteenth century, an unexpected counterpoint to the severe typography of Bodoni and Didot appeared in the illuminated printing of the visionary English poet and artist William Blake (1757–1827). -
Innovations in typography
The Industrial Revolution generated a shift in the social and economic role of typographic communication. Before the nineteenth century, dissemination of information through books and broadsheets was its dominant function. The faster pace and mass-communication needs of an increasingly urban and industrialized society produced a rapid expansion of jobbing printers, advertising, and posters. -
The wood-type poster
As display types expanded in size, problems multiplied for both printer and founder. In casting, it was difficult to keep the metal in a liquid state while pouring, and uneven cooling often created slightly concave printing surfaces. Handbill for an excursion train, 1876. To be bolder than bold, the compositor used heavier letterforms for the initial letter of important words. Oversized terminal letterforms combine with condensed and extended styles in the phrase Maryland Day! -
A revolution in printing
This engraved illustration depicts the printing press of all-iron parts invented in England by Charles Stanhope. The metal screw mechanism required approximately one-tenth the manual force needed to print on a wooden press, and Stanhope's press could print a sheet double the size. -
steam-powered cylinder press
The first steam-powered cylinder press, 1814. Koenig's invention caused the speed of printing to skyrocket, while its price dropped considerably. -
san-serifs
The third major typographic innovation of the early 1800s, sans-serif type made its modest debut in an 1816 specimen book issued by William Caslon IV Sans serifs which became so important to twentieth-century graphic design, had a tentative beginning. The cumbersome early sans serifs were used primarily for subtitles and descriptive material under excessively bold fat faces and Egyptians. They were little noticed until the early 1830s, when several typefounders introduced new sans-serif styles. -
The inventors of photography
Photography and graphic communications have been closely linked beginning with the first experiments to capture an image of nature with a camera. Joseph Niépce (1765–1833), the Frenchman who first produced a photographic image, began his research by seeking an automatic means of transferring drawings onto printing plates. Joseph Niépce, photo etching of an engraving of Cardinal Georges D'Amboise, c. 1827. -
The Boston school of chromolithography
American chromolithography began in Boston, where several outstanding practitioners pioneered a school of lithographic naturalism. They achieved technical perfection and imagery of compelling realism. -
Popular graphics of the Victorian era
Owen Jones, color plate from The Grammar of Ornament, 1856. This plate shows patterns found in the arts and crafts of India. -
Art nouveau
Ando Hiroshige, Evening Squall at Great Bridge near Atake, c. 1856–59. A moment in time is preserved as a transient human event. -
Defining the medium
During the same decades, when inventors were expanding photography's technical boundaries, artists and adventurers were exploring its image-making potential. Photography accurately reflects the external world, yielding a precise and repeatable image. However, merely isolating a single moment in time was not enough for some nineteenth-century photographers; they defined and extended the aesthetic and communicative frontiers of the new medium. Nadar, “Sarah Bernhardt,” 1859. -
Photography as reportage
The ability of photography to provide a historical record and define human history for forthcoming generations was dramatically proven by the prosperous New York studio photographer Mathew Brady. When the American Civil War began, Brady set out in a white duster and straw hat carrying a handwritten card from Abraham Lincoln reading “Pass Brady—A. Lincoln.” -
The application of photography to printing
John Macdonald, wood engraving, Freedmen on the Canal Bank at Richmond. The tonality of the photographer's image was reinvented with the visual syntax of wood-engraved line. -
The private press movement
Architect, graphic designer, jeweler, and silversmith, the indefatigable Charles R. Ashbee (1863–1942) founded the Guild of Handicraft in 1888 with three members and only fifty pounds British sterling as working capital. -
Design for the London Underground
In 1890 the world's first underground electric railway system opened in London. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the Underground Electric Railways of London, Ltd., consolidated much of London's urban transportation system. Just as AEG director Emil Rathenau was the catalyst for that firm's comprehensive design program, a statistician and attorney named Frank Pick (1878–1941) provided the vision necessary to lead the Underground Group to the forefront of innovative publicity -
English art nouveau
In England the art nouveau movement was primarily concerned with graphic design and illustration rather than architectural and product design. Its sources, in addition to those listed earlier, included Gothic art and Victorian painting. -
The Kelmscott Press
William Morris, trademark for the Kelmscott Press, 1892. first production was The Story of the Glittering Plain, by William Morris, with illustrations by Walter Crane. Initially, twenty copies were planned, but as word of the enterprise spread, Morris was persuaded to increase the press run to two hundred copies on paper and six on vellum. From 1891 until the Kelmscott Press disbanded in 1898, -
The Genesis of Twentieth-Century Design
The turn of a century invites introspection. As one century closes and a new one begins, writers and artists begin to question conventional wisdom and speculate on new possibilities for changing the circumstances of culture. -
Pictorial Modernism
If the European poster of the first half of the twentieth century was in many ways a continuation of the 1890s poster, its course was nevertheless strongly affected in the second decade of the century by new modern-art movements and the communication needs of world war. Although influenced by cubism and constructivism, poster designers were cognizant of the need to maintain a pictorial reference if their posters were to communicate persuasively with the general public; they walked a tightrope be -
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Glasgow school
During the final years of the nineteenth century, the work of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) was becoming known to European artists and designers. The Studio and its reproductions of work by Beardsley and Toorop had a strong influence on a group of young Scottish artists who became friends at the Glasgow School of Art in the early 1890s -
The maverick from Munich
A leading Plakatstil designer, Ludwig Hohlwein (1874–1949) of Munich, began his career as a graphic illustrator with work commissioned by Jugend magazine as early as 1904. During the first half of the century, Hohlwein's graphic art evolved with changing social conditions. The Beggarstaffs were his initial inspiration, and in the years before World War I Hohlwein took great delight in reducing his images to flat shapes. -
Plakatstil
The reductive, flat-color design school that emerged in Germany early in the twentieth century is called Plakatstil (Poster Style). Lucian Bernhard, poster for Priester matches, c. 1905. Color became the means of projecting a powerful message with minimal information. -
The Influence of Modern Art
Some of these modern movements, such as fauvism, had a limited effect on graphic design. Others, such as cubism and futurism, Dada and surrealism, De Stijl, suprematism, constructivism, and expressionism, directly influenced the graphic language of form and visual communications in this century. The evolution of twentieth-century graphic design closely relates to modern painting, poetry, and architecture. -
war poster
Ludwig Hohlwein, poster for men's ready-made clothing, 1908. The interplay between organic/geometric form and figurative/abstract images fascinated Hohlwein. -
Photography and the modern movement
It was inevitable that the new visual language of the modern movements, with its concern for point, line, plane, shape, and texture, and for the relationships between these visual elements, would begin to influence photography, just as it had affected typography in the futurist and Dadaist approaches to graphic design.Francis Bruguière, “Light Abstraction,” undated. By cutting and bending paper, Bruguière composed a photographic composition of forms moving in and out of space. -
The poster goes to war
The poster reached the zenith of its importance as a communications medium during World War I (1914–18). Printing technologies had advanced rapidly, while radio and other electronic means of public communication were not yet in widespread use. During the war, governments turned to the poster as a significant medium of propaganda and visual persuasion. Governments needed to recruit armies and boost public morale to maintain popular support for the war effort. -
war poster
Saville Lumley, “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?” poster, 1914. The direct appeal to sentimentality and patriotism is illustrated in this family scene. -
war poster
Saville Lumley, “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?” poster, 1914. The direct appeal to sentimentality and patriotism is illustrated in this family scene. -
A New Language of Form
During the postwar years, when Edward McKnight Kauffer and A. M. Cassandre were applying synthetic cubism's planes to the poster in England and France, a formal typographic approach to graphic design emerged in Holland and Russia, where artists saw clearly the implications of cubism. Visual art could move beyond the threshold of pictorial imagery into the invention of pure form. Ideas about form and composing space from the new painting and sculpture were quickly applied to problems of design. -
war poster
Alfred Leete, poster for military recruiting, c. 1915. This printed sheet confronts the spectator with a direct gaze. -
cubism
Juan Gris, Fruit Bowl, 1916. Cubist planes move forward and backward in shallow space, while the vertical and diagonal geometry of a grid imposes order. -
De Stijl
Bart van der Leck, Batavier Line poster, 1916. Flat pure color and bold horizontal and vertical spatial divisions build the design. Because of World War I, this poster could not be used: the shipping lines between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom were severed. When it was eventually employed during the 1920s the text and colors were changed, infuriating Van der Leck. This example is the first printing of the poster and reflects the original design of the artist. -
war poster
James Montgomery Flagg, poster for military recruiting, 1917. Five million copies of Flagg's poster were printed, making it one of the most widely reproduced posters in history. -
De Stijl
The De Stijl movement was launched in the Netherlands in the late summer of 1917. Working in an abstract geometric style, De Stijl artists sought universal laws of balance and harmony for art, which could then be a prototype for a new social order. Mondrian's paintings are the wellspring from which De Stijl's philosophy and visual forms developed. -
war poster
J. Paul Verrees, poster promoting victory gardens, 1918. Private action—raising one's own food—is tied directly to the defeat of the enemy. -
Postcubist pictorial modernism
E. McKnight Kauffer, poster for the Daily Herald, 1918. This bellwether poster was based on the designer's earlier futurist- and cubist-inspired print of flying birds. -
Postcubist pictorial modernism
The era between the two world wars began with a decade of unprecedented prosperity in much of Europe and North America. Faith in the machine and technology was at an all-time high. This ethic gained expression through art and design. Fernand Léger's celebration of mechanical, machine-made, and industrial forms became an important design resource, and cubist ideas about spatial organization and synthetic imagery inspired an important new direction inpictorial images. -
Futurism
Filippo Marinetti, “Montagne + Vallate + Strade x Joffre” (Mountains + Valleys + Streets x Joffre), foldout from Les mots en liberté futuristes, 1919. This poem “depicts” Marinetti's journey, which included the war front (lower left), France (upper left), and a visit to Léger (top right). The futurist poets believed that the use of different sizes, weights, and styles of type allowed them to weld painting and poetry, because the intrinsic beauty of letterforms, manipulated creatively, transform -
Dada
Hannah Höch, Da—dandy, collage and photomontage, 1919. Images and materials are recycled, with both chance juxtapositions and planned decisions contributing to the creative process. -
Russian supermatism and constructivism
Ilja Zdanevich, insert cover of Milliork, by Aleksei Kruchenykh, 1919. Zdanevich's cover illustrates the influence of Dada and futurism on the Russian avant-garde. -
he Bauhaus at Weimar
The Bauhaus years in Weimar (1919–24) were intensely visionary and drew inspiration from expressionism. Characterized by the utopian desire to create a new spiritual society, the early Bauhaus sought a new unity of artists and craftsmen to build for the future. Stained glass, wood, and metal workshops were taught by an artist and a craftsman and were organized along medieval Bauhütte lines: master, journeyman, and apprentice. -
The Bauhaus at Weimar
Lyonel Feininger, Cathedral, 1919. This woodcut was printed on the title page of the Bauhaus Manifesto. -
A book-design renaissance
The long-range effect of Morris was a significant upgrading of book design and typography throughout the world. In Germany, this influence inspired a renaissance of arts-and-crafts activities, wonderful new typefaces, and a significant improvement in book design. Jan van Krimpen, pages from Deirdre & de zonen van Usnach (Deirdre and the Sons of Usnach), by A. Roland Holst, Palladium Series, 1920. -
Russian suprematism and constructivism
The Russian avant-garde saw common traits in cubism and futurism and coined the term cubo-futurism. Experimentation in typography and design characterized their futurist publications, which presented work by the visual and literary art communities. Symbolically, the Russian futurist books were a reaction against the values of czarist Russia. The use of coarse paper, handicraft production methods, and handmade additions expressed the poverty of peasant society as well as the resources of artist -
Typeface design in the first half of the twentieth century
The passion for the new typography created a spate of sans-serif styles during the 1920s. An earlier sans serif, Johnston's Railway Type, inspired the Gill Sans series, which was designed by Edward Johnston's friend and former student Eric Gill (1882–1940) and issued between 1928 and 1930. This type family, which eventually included fourteen styles, does not have an extremely mechanical appearance because its proportions stem from the roman tradition. -
Russian suprematism and constructivism
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovski, ROSTA Window poster, c. 1921. Such simple posters spread the Bolshevik message to the largely illiterate population. -
The spread of constructivism
El Lissitsky, cover for Wendingen, no. 4-1, lithograph after a drawing by El Lissitsky, 1921. Lissitsky came to Germany from Russia at the end of 1921, and there is no indication that he traveled to the Netherlands before the end of 1922. It is possible that Adolf Behne, a close friend of Lissitsky, asked Wijdeveld to give Lissitsky this commission, his dire straits because of the time. -
The impact of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Itten's replacement as head of the preliminary course was the Hungarian constructivist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. A restless experimenter who studied law before turning to art, Moholy-Nagy explored painting, photography, film, sculpture, and graphic design. New materials such as acrylic resin and plastic, new techniques such as photomontage and the photogram, and visual means including kinetic motion, light, and transparency were encompassed in his wide-ranging investigations. -
Surrealism
With roots in Dada and in a group of young French writers and poets associated with the journal Littérature, surrealism entered the Paris scene in 1924, searching for the “more real than real world behind the real”—the world of intuition, dreams, and the unconscious realm explored by Freud. Max Ernst, collage from Une semaine de bonté (A Week of Kindness), 1934. Photomechanical printing techniques obliterate cut edges, unifying the image. -
Expressionism
In early twentieth-century art, the tendency to depict not objective reality but subjective emotions and personal responses to subjects and events was called expressionism, which emerged as an organized movement in Germany before World War I. Paul Klee, Fish Magic, 1925. Images are reinvented into potent signs; color, form, and texture are delicately balanced into a cohesive composition; and the whole transmits a quiet poetry from a world invented by the artist's imagination. -
De Stijl
Théo van Doesburg and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, book cover, 1925. The essence of De Stijl is conveyed. -
The spread of constructivism
During World War I, Russian suprematism and the Dutch De Stijl movements were isolated from one another, yet both groups pushed cubism to a pure geometric art. After the war their ideas were adopted by artists in other countries, including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. -
The spread of constructivism
H. T. Wijdeveld, title page for Wendingen, no. 7-3, “The Lifework of Frank Lloyd Wright, part IV,” after a design by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1925. -
The spread of constructivism
Henryk Berlewi, exhibition poster, 1925. This early application of mechano-faktura principles to graphic design is for an exhibition held in a Warsaw automobile showroom. -
De Stijl
Piet Mondrian, oil on canvas, Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, 1927. -
The spread of constructivism
H. T. Wijdeveld, Internationale Economisch-Historische Tentoonstelling (International Economic Historical Exhibition), poster, 1929. This poster reflects the brick architecture of the Amsterdam School. -
The spread of constructivism
Ladislav Sutnar, cover design for Ženení a vdávání (Getting Married), 1929. The triangle creates a strong focal point, unifies the silhouette figures, and becomes the main structural element in a delicately balanced composition. -
Immigrants to America
A migratation began slowly and reached a peak in the late 1930s, as cultural leaders from Europe, including many graphic designers, came to America. The design language they brought with them, and the changes imposed on their work by their American experience, forms an important phase of the development of American graphic design. -
The Modern Movement in America
The modern movement did not gain an early foothold in the United States. When the fabled 1913 Armory Show introduced modernism to America, it generated a storm of protest and provoked public rejection of modern art and design. However, the modern approach slowly gained ground on several fronts: book design, editorial design for fashion and business magazines catering to affluent audiences, and promotional and corporate graphics. -
The final years of the Bauhaus
In 1931 the Nazi party dominated the Dessau City Council; it canceled Bauhaus faculty contracts in 1932. Mies van der Rohe tried to run the Bauhaus from an empty telephone factory in Berlin-Steglitz, but Nazi harassment made continuance untenable. The Gestapo demanded the removal of “cultural Bolsheviks” from the school, with Nazi sympathizers as replacements. -
Typeface design in the first half of the twentieth century
Eric Gill, page from The Four Gospels, 1931. Descending type sizes, all capitals on opening lines, unjustified right margins, and initial capitals integrated with illustrations are forged into a unified whole. -
Munich
Ludwig Hohlwein, “Und Du?” (And You?) poster, 1932. In the elections of 1932 and 1933 this poster was used, with different slogans, by both the Steel Helmet and the German National People's parties. The German imperial flag serves as a backdrop for the sculptural head and helmet. -
New approaches to photography
The new typography emphasized objective communication and was concerned with machine production. The camera was seen as a vital tool for image making. Much of the photography used in conjunction with the new typography was straightforward and neutral. The role of photography as a graphic communications tool was expanded by Swiss designer/photographer Herbert Matter (1907–84). His posters of the 1930s use montage, dynamic scale changes, and an effective integration of typography and illustration. -
New approaches to photography
Herbert Matter, Swiss tourism poster, 1935. The photographic montage has a graphic vigor signifying the spatial experience of mountain height. -
New approaches to photography
Herbert Matter, poster for Pontresina, 1935. High and low camera angles accompany dramatic scale contrasts. -
Spanish Civil War Posters
The Spanish Civil War arose out of tensions between the liberal Republicans and the conservative Nationalists. Shifts between monarchy, military, and democratic governments fractured the nation into many ideological, social, cultural, and geographic subgroups.Arturo Ballester, “Hail to the Heroes,” poster, c. 1937. Ironically, this art deco–inspired poster for the anarchist National Confederation of Labor (CNT), Spain's largest trade union, is clearly influenced by Ludwig Holwein. -
New approaches to photography
Walter Herdeg, poster for St. Moritz, 1936. Light and shadow create a lively composition conveying the thrills of skiing. St. Moritz's sun trademark becomes part of the photograph. -
The Modern Movement in America
Walker Evans, untitled, 1936. Evans's Atlanta photograph contrasting decaying homes and Depression-era movie posters documents a chasm between reality and graphic fantasy. -
The Modern Movement in America
Lester Beall, poster for the Rural Electrification Administration, c. 1937. The benefits of electricity were presented through signs understandable to illiterate and semiliterate audiences. -
The Modern Movement in America
Lester Beall, poster for the Rural Electrification Administration, c. 1937. Patriotic graphics and happy farm children imply a rural life improved by government programs. -
Immigrants to America
A. M. Cassandre, cover for Harper's Bazaar, October 1938. The eye and the lips imply feminine beauty. -
Immigrants to America
Alexey Brodovitch, photography by Herbert Matter, Harper's Bazaar cover, June 1940. Brodovitch often used repetition as a design device, as with the round forms on the butterfly wings and the eyes of the model. -
The war years
While the trauma of war disrupted the ability of many governments to produce graphic propaganda, a diverse group of painters, illustrators, and designers received commissions from the U.S. Office of War Information. America's wartime graphics ranged from brilliantly conceived posters to informational training materials and amateurish cartoons. -
The war years
Joseph Binder, poster proposal for the U.S. Army Air Corps, 1941. Extreme spatial depth is conveyed by the scale change between the close-up wing and aircraft formation. -
After the war
Herbert Matter, brochure covers introducing a Knoll chair, 1956. When the translucent cover page is turned, the strange wrapped object is revealed to be a chair.
