Ancient history of graphic design

While Graphic Design as a discipline has a moderately recent history, first coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922, graphic design-like actions span the history of humankind: from the caves of Lascaux, to Rome's Trajan's Column to the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, to the dazzling neons of Ginza. In truth "Babylon, artisans pushed cuneiform inscriptions into clay bricks or tablets which were used for creation. The bricks gave information such as the name of the reigning monarch, the builder, or some other dignitary". Arguably, this could have been acknowledged as the first billboard or road signs announcing the name of the governor of a state or mayor of the city today. The Egyptians developed a key communication by hieroglyphics which used picture signs dating as far back as 136 B.C. found on the Rosetta Stone. "The Rosetta stone, found by one of Napoleon's engineers was an poster for the Egyptian ruler, Ptolemy as the "true Son of the Sun, the Father of the Moon, and the warden of the Happiness of Men""  Further, the Egyptians also brought the creation of papyrus, paper made from reeds found along the Nile, on which they transcribed advertisement more common among their people at the time. Between the dates of 500A.D. and 1450 A.D., also known as the "Dark Ages", it was the Monks that kept the symbols and writings alive when much of the citizenry were stagnated in progressive learning in reading and writing. In both this lengthy history and in the relatively recent explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries, there is sometimes a blurring distinction and overlapping of advertising art, graphic design and fine art. After all, they share many of the same elements, theories, principles, practices and languages, and sometimes the same benefactor or client. In advertising art the ultimate objective is the sale of goods and services. In graphic design, "the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that document human experience. The History even as far back as Benjamin Franklin who use this paper The Pennsylvania Gazette, in 1728 he mastered the art of promotion not only did he promote his own books he used it to authority what he thought the masses should read, as well. "Benjamin Franklin's originality gained in force as did his cunning and in 1737 he had replace his counterpart in Pennsylvania, Andrew Bradford as postmaster and printer after a competition he instituted as copywriter and consequently won. He showed his prowess by administration an ad in his General Magazine and the Historical Chronicle of British Plantations in America (the precursor to the Saturday Evening Post) that stressed the benefits offered by a stove he invented, named called the Pennsylvania Fireplace, which is still sold today and is known as the Franklin Stove. American promotion was as American as primitive plumbing as it imitated British newspapers and magazines. Newspapers offered 3 blocks of telling society, or the slaves that ran away from their masters. Advertisements were printed in jumbled type and uneven lines which made it difficult to read. It was Benjamin Franklin that changed this by adding 14 point heading of the first line of the advertisement; although later it was shortened and centered, making a real heading. Franklin's use of type was masterful; he instinctively knew what "appealed to the eye". It was Franklin that added illustrations which was something that not even London printers had done and was thorough most advanced. Benjamin Franklin was the first to invent logos, which were early symbols that announced such advertisements as opticians with golden spectacles. Benjamin Franklin taught the advertisers that the use of detail was imperative to tell the story of their products. The idea of telling a story grew a monster as some began advertising in 10-20 lines adding color, names, varieties, and sizes of the goods they obtainable. The early advertisements tell us a lot about the culture, the thoughts and conditions that the colonists faced during the establishment of this great nation in its advertising infancy.

Advertisements

A man named Phillip Miller placed an ad in the Pennsylvania Gazette May 1, 1776 which read: CAME TO MY PLANTATION, in SPRINGFIELD Township, PHILADELPHIA County, near Flour-town, the 26th of March 1776, A Strange Red Cow, The owner may have her again, on prove his property, and paying charges" One of the first ads for Lost and Found articles were as follows:"Lost on the 10. Of April last off of Mr. Shippen's Warff in Boston, two iron anvils, weighing between 120 and 140 pounds. Whoever has taken them up, and will bring or give true intelligence of them to John Campbell, Post master, shall have a adequate reward" it was the Publisher that had the responsibility to pay rewards for lost and found articles. I like you are wondering, who would steal something that heavy and where would they keep it and, why? This example was one of personal advertisements which often blended large humor: March 8, 1866- Marriage-A Gentleman, Young with a fair section of cash and very "large expectations", desires to make some food and handsome girl his wife. Her happiness will be his own, and the sincere object of marital relations; money no object, but youth indispensable. Old maids, widows, and ugly women over 18 need not to respond to "Ye Man", Herald Office. November 9, 1862, New York Sunday Mercury," TO PATRIOTIC UNMARRIED LADIES- I am a soldier, just returned from the wars. Have lost leg, but expect to get a cork one; have useless arm, but will be called brave for it; was once good-looking, but am scarred all over. If any patriotic young lady will marry me, why FALL IN LINE! The applicant must be moderately handsome, have an excellent education, play the piano and sing; and a competency will not be objectionable. One with these requirements would, doubtless, secure my affections. Address Capt. F.A.B., Mercury Office"

Female advertisers

December 21, 1861 in the New York Herald, " A YOUNG LADY, COUNTRY BRED, BUT EASILY tamed and educated, would like to communicate with a city gentleman, with a view to nuptials. It is necessary for him to be wealthy, and not less than forty years of age, as she would "rather be an old man's darling than a young man's slave”. The promoter is 21, and presumes her manners and appearance will recommend her to tastes not over fastidious; also a lady of location will expect replies from to blame parties only; therefore, triflers take heed. Address Matilda, station D Post Office “The 17th and 18th Century advertising moved into trading cards which had proceeded handwritten announcements being pasted on the walls of establishments this became so widespread and as space was short that new announcements were organism pasted straight over others that had been slapped up only minutes before, this was the precursor to today's Advertising code of ethics. It started as an agreement that no ad would be posted over another if the paste was still damp (this form of paste dried very slowly). These ads only gained about a few days worth of exposure. There were clear examples of bias in classified ads early on in many reproachful notices placed by masters of slaves and husbands when their slaves or wives ran away. The advertisers were not bound by codes of ethics but only through society as it were through the earliest collections. Truth was in between the words that were used, however, the ads of the time, did give an accurate picture of culture and a way to keep them accountable among themselves. The habits, practices and principles are engraved in advertising and through the tour of the past advertisements we bring back together with the ages past. Colonial merchants like merchants of today go where the customers were. The trading post was the store and the peddler, a "walking catalog". A quote by Frederic Farrar, historian and newspaper salesman stated in October 1975 that, “Without newspapers there would have been no American rebellion and without advertising there would have been no newspaper".

The beginning of printing

During the Tang Dynasty (618–907) between the 7th and 9th century AD, wood blocks were cut to print on textiles and later to carbon copy Buddhist texts. A Buddhist scripture printed in 868 is the original identified printed book. start in the 11th century, longer scrolls and books were shaped using movable type printing making books widely available during the Song dynasty (960–1279). Although printing from moveable type had been introduced a couple of centuries earlier, the handbills or trade cards of the 17th-18th Century were printed from wood or copper engravings. They generally announced the business and its location. Hogarth, a famous painter from England also doubled his skill in engraving being one of the first to design for business trade. A new age dawned in Mainz Germany, in the year 1448, Johann Gutenberg introduce moveable type in a new metal alloy. The invention of the printing press opened up a new era of business and trade. Beforehand the most logical way of advertising was word of mouth; print expedited advertising methods in an explosive way. In cities such as France and London, criers announced products for sale just as ancient Romans had done, this new invention replaced the maddening street noise. Visual representations were on the horizon as tradesmen desired to use this method to convey to the business public the items they had for sale and their need to persuade the purchasers to use their crop. The Printing press made books widely available in Europe. The book design of Aldus Manutius developed the book structure which would become the foundation of western publication design. This era of graphic design is called Humanist or Old Style. Additionally, it was William Caxton, England's first owner of a printing press that printed Religious books and had trouble selling them that brought him to discover the use of the left over pages and utilize them in announcing the sale of the books and post them on the church doors. This meticulous form of posting to the doors was termed "squis" or "pin up" posters, in roughly 1612 as the first form of print advertising in Europe. The term Siquis actually came from the Roman era when community notices were posted stating "if anybody...", which is Latin for "si quis". These printed announcements were followed by later public registers of wants called want ads and in some areas such as the first periodical in Paris advertising was termed "advices". The "Advices" were what we know today as want ad media or advice columns. Later in 1638, British North America gets a printing press, from England. The printing press arrived at Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts. There were more than 52 years before another printing press would arrive in Boston to Benjamin Harris, a London Bookseller who had immigrated to Boston. Benjamin Harris tries his hand at publishing a newspaper in serial form. Harris' attempt a publishing produced a paper entitled Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic, it was four pages long and was censored by the government after its first copy. It was however, John Campbell that gets the credit for the first newspaper, The Boston News-Letter that appeared in 1704. The paper was known during the rebellion as "Weeklies", it was termed so as it took 13 hours for the print ink to dry. Therefore, printing both sides of the paper would have compulsory more than a day of drying time alone-plus the time to set the type, print and distribute. "The solution was to first, print the ads and then to print the news on the other side the day before publication. The paper was for pages long having ads on at least 20%-30% of the total paper, (pages one and four) the hot news was located on the inside." The early use of the Boston News-Letter carried Campbell's own solicitations for marketing from his readers. Campbell's first paid advertisement was in his third edition, May 7 or 8th, 1704. Two of the first ads were for stolen merchandise which were two anvils and the third was for real estate in Long Island Oyster Bay, Owned by William Bradford, a pioneer printer in New York, the first to sell something of value. William Bradford, later publishes his first newspaper in 1725, New York's first, The New-York Gazette. William Bradford's son, preceded him in Philadelphia publishing the American Weekly Mercury, 1719. The Mercury and William Brooker's Massachusetts Gazette, available a day earlier were the 2 newspapers to be published following the Boston News-Letter.

Emergence of the design industry

In late 19th-century Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, the first official publication of a printed design was released which marked the separation of graphic design from fine art. In 1849, Henry Cole became one of the major forces in design education in Great Britain, informing the government of the importance of design in his Journal of Design and Manufactures. He organized the Great Exhibition as a celebration of modern industrial technology and Victorian design. From 1891 to 1896, William Morris' Kelmscott Press published books that are some of the most significant of the graphic design products of the Arts and Crafts movement, and made a very lucrative business of creating books of great stylistic refinement and selling them to the public. Morris created a market for works of graphic design in their own right to create a profession for this new type of art for aspiring individuals who wish to earn a living through these skills. The work of the Kelmscott Press is characterized by its obsession with historical styles. This historicism was, however, important as it amounted to the first significant reaction to the stale state of nineteenth-century graphic design. Morris' work, along with the rest of the Private Press movement, directly influenced Art Nouveau and is indirectly responsible for developments in early twentieth century graphic design in general.