The History of Graphic Design

Since the beginning of time, people tried to capture ideas and concepts in a visual form. This was to store knowledge in a graphic way to create order and clarity. The term Graphic designer describes structural order and visual form in printed communication. The term Graphic designer is heir to distinguished ancestry.

Prehistoric Visual Communication

The early Hominids communicated through creating marks, symbols and pictures on a surface. They used charcoal and iron oxide to create black and warm tones. They mixed the charcoal and iron oxides with fat to create a form of paint. Meggs states that (2006, pg 4) This was not the beginning of art as we know it. Rather it was the drawings of visual communications, because of these early pictures were made for survival, and for utilitarian and ritualistic purposes. The Hominids created what seemed to be spear marks on the sides of some images of animals which is said to indicate that the animals were used in magical rituals made to gain power over animals for success in the hunt. Abstract symbols such as dots, squares and other signs are combined with the animals in many cave paintings. Some say these symbols represent man-made objects. The animals painted on the cave walls are pictographs, pictographs are elementary sketches to represent the things shown. (Refer to image 1) The oldest forms of writing were mainly logographic, which is a written symbol that represents an entire spoken word without showing any pronunciation. Most writing systems are separated into three categories: 1. Logographic (A sign or character representing a word or phrase) 2. Syllabic (a written character that portrays a syllable) 3. Alphabetic

The Sumerian Influence

The Sumerians were one of the earliest urban societies in the world. The Sumerian language is the earliest known written language. The "proto-literate" period of Sumerian writing spans from. 3500 to 3000 BC. In this period, records were mainly logographic with no linguistic or phonetic content. Cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. Over time, the pictorial representation became simplified and more abstract. Cuneiform was imprinted on clay tablets, on which symbols were drawn with a reed for a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped. (Refer to image 2)

Mesopotamian scribes used Cuneiform to recorded daily events, trading, and for astronomy. Cuneiform writing was also used by priests to record a variety of information such as temple activities, business and trade. Cuneiform was also used to write stories, myths, and personal letters. The Sumerian script inspired the Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite, Assyrian, Luwian, the Old Persian and Ugaritic national alphabets. In the mid-3rd millennium, the writing direction was changed from top to bottom, to left-to-right and they used a sharp reed for a stylus was used which was pushed into the clay, these two developments made writing quicker and easier. Cuneiform was adopted by the Akkadians , it evolved into Old Assyrian cuneiform, which had many changes to the Sumerian alphabet. The Arabic created many similar signs that became distorted and abbreviated to create new phonetic values. Hittite cuneiform is an version of the Old Assyrian cuneiform and the Hittite language. When cuneiform was modified to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings were added to the script and the pronunciations of many Hittite words were written by logograms.

Egyptian Hieroglyphics
The hieroglyphic script was mainly for formal inscriptions on the walls of temples and tombs. In some inscriptions the hieroglyphics are very detailed, in others they are simple outlines. Egyptian Hieroglyphics were a writing system that was a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements. (Refer to image 3). Egyptologists divided Hieroglyphs into three writing types according to their appearance: 1. Hieroglyphics, 2. Hieratic 3. Demotics Hieroglyphics were always engraved in stones on large scales. Hieratic was the "priestly" script used on manuscripts and paintings, and was just a cursive form of hieroglyphics. Demotic was a highly cursive script that replaced hieratic as the script for everyday use. Visual hieroglyphics are all figurative, but they represent real and figurative elements, which were usually stylized and simplified, but are all recognizable in form. The Egyptians never created signs for to connect sounds, combining the different hieroglyphics produced skeletal form for every word. Although, the same sign can be understood in different ways: as phonetic (sound), as a logogram, or as a written character symbolizing the idea of a thing (ideogram). The Egyptian hieroglyphic script contained 24 uniliteral symbols (symbols that stood for single consonants).

Each symbol had a unique reading, but several of these fell together. Besides the uniliteral symbols, there are also the bilateral (121 bilateral) and trilateral (75 trilateral) signs, to represent a specific sequence of two or three consonants and vowels. Meggs (pg 12, 2006) states that Our use of visual symbols originated with the Egyptians; from them we inherited the zodiac, the scales of justice, and the use of animals to represent concepts, cities and people.

Development of the Alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet was a non- pictographic alphabet. It was used for the Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean, where it was introduced to other cultures and evolved. The Phoenician alphabet consisted of 22 consonants and no vowels. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is influenced by the ancient Phoenician alphabet. It was used by the Israelis, both Arabs and Jews. Paleo- Hebrew began to fall out of use by the Jews in the 5th century when they adopted the Aramaic alphabet as their writing system for Hebrew. (Refer to image 4) Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which was a variety of the Phoenician alphabet in which large parts of the Hebrew Bible were originally composed. Samaritan script was used by the ancient Israelis, both Jews and Arabs. The "square script which is the Hebrew alphabet was used by the Jews and is a stylized version of the Aramaic alphabet which they adopted from the Persian Empire. After the fall of the Persian Empire, Judaism used both scripts before settling on the Aramaic form. The th Aramaic alphabet was also modified from the Phoenicians and became distinctive in the 8 century. All the letters represented consonants. (Refer to image 5) Writing systems that mainly used consonants but do not show most vowels or any indication of vowels with an added distinguishing signs, have been called abjads by Peter T Daniels. The Greek alphabet is descended from the Phoenician alphabet and they modified it into their own language. The Greeks created the first true alphabet, in which vowels were given equality to consonants. The Greek alphabet is a set of 24 letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the 8th century. The Greek alphabet is the first and oldest alphabet in the sense that it shows each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol. The letters were also used to represent Greek numbers. (Refer to image 6) Lawrence Lo (2010, online, accessed 30 April 2011) states that; Early Greek was written right-to-left, just like Phoenician. However, eventually its direction changed to boustrophedon (which means "ox-turning"), where the direction of writing changes every line. Even more confusing is that the orientation of the letter themselves is dependent on the direction of writing as well. By the 5 century the Greeks decided to write from left-to right.
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The Etruscans were the first people in the Italic peninsula to learn how to write. Their style of writing was influenced by the Greek alphabet. The Etruscan alphabet was mainly found on tomb stones. The Etruscan alphabet had 26 letters and did not have many of the same sounds that the Greek language had. Even though they did adopt most of the letters from the Greek alphabet, they left many of them unused. (Refer to image 7) The Latin alphabet was influenced by the Etruscan alphabet; they adopted writing in the 5 centaury Many barbarian nations started to use Latin for court and then adopted the Latin alphabet to write their own language. The Latins dropped about four letters from the Greek and Etruscan alphabet and they created 9 new letters. The Latin alphabet consisted of 23 letters, 21 of which were derived from the Etruscan alphabet. In ancient Roman times there were two main types of Latin script, capital letters and cursive letters creating calligraphy or uncial. (Refer to image 8)
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The Asian Contribution

The Chinese developed thousands of signs and characters. The earliest form of Chinese writing is called the Oracle Bone Script; they carved symbols and characters into large animal bones and turtle shells, which was done to communicate with their Gods and dead ancestors. The Oracle Bone Script appears to be primitive and pictographic. (Refer to image 9) According to legend, Chinese writing was first written around 1800 BC by Tsang Chieh who was inspired by claw marks of birds and foot prints of animals. The system of writing slowly developed from the Late Shang to the Western Chou dynasties 1100 BCE to 700 BCE. Unlike The Oracle Bone Script, which was carved on bones, Greater Seal only appeared on bronze vessels. The Chinese first developed simple nouns. Then the written language was slowly matured and characters were made to express actions, colors, sizes and types. Lesser Seal was a graceful script and was the direct parent of the modern and unsimplified Chinese script. Not only are Lesser Seal characters are more stylized and less pictographic, but it also shows regular and widespread use of letters much like modern Chinese. Lesser Seal grew over time and can still be seen in calligraphy today. Meggs [(31; 2006)] states that Chinese calligraphy is not alphabetical and every symbol is composed of a number of differently shaped lines within an imaginary square. Chinese calligraphy is similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mayan writing. Chinese calligraphy is a writing system that is a visual language and extremely pictographic. The Chinese sacrificed realism and went for a more abstract design. (Refer to image 10) Chinese created paper as we know it today by using plant fibers such as hemp were soaked and beaten into sludge. Then the sludge was strained through a cloth sift attached to a frame that also served as a drying platform for the paper.

There is no direct link between spoken and written Chinese. At first the Japanese only wrote in Chinese, but over time the Chinese script was adopted to represent Japanese words. One of the scripts called kanji is essentially Chinese characters, and the other two systems are called hiragana and katakana are simplified forms of certain Chinese. The Khitan people were a powerful Mongolian tribe that dominated Northern China and established the Liao dynasty between the 10th and 12th centuries BCE and invented not one but two scripts both based on Chinese and improved it to their language. One form, the called the "Large Script", remained largely logographic, while the "Small Script" grew into a mixed phonetic and logographic system. In both scripts, some signs were influenced by the Chinese and were extremely modified. Nushu was a secret script used by women in Hunan over hundreds of years to communicate with each other because they were allowed to learn Chinese.

Illuminated Manuscripts
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript that text is complemented with decorations, such as decorated initials, borders and small illustrations. An illuminated manuscript usually refers to manuscripts decorated with gold and silver. Illuminated manuscripts are hand-written. (Refer to image 11) Most of manuscripts are religious nature: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts. Most illuminated manuscripts were created as bibles, which had taken the place of scrolls. But, from the 13th century onward, an increasing number of non religious texts were illuminated too. Very few illuminated manuscript fragments survived on papyrus, which did not usually last as long as vellum which was the best quality parchment. Most medieval manuscripts illuminated or not, were written on parchment. Humanism began as a movement to revive ancient literature and education. Humanists tried to apply ancient lessons to areas such as agriculture, politics, social relations, architecture, music, and medicine. This new arrival of knowledge needed the production of secular books. In the middle Ages, illumination was rarely used in the decoration of civil texts. In the Renaissance, the sacred texts continued to receive the most extravagant decoration, civil texts began to rival them for elegance of script, illumination, and binding.

European Typography and Design for printing

Typography began as closely related crafts in mid-15th century Europe with the introduction of movable type printing, movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable mechanisms to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual letters or punctuation). Johannes Gutenberg was a German goldsmith, printer and publisher who introduced modern book printing. He invented of a mechanical movable type printing that started the printing revolution. Gutenberg was the first European to use movable type printing and he invented the printing press. Yhe He invented the process of mass-producing movable type and the use of oil-based ink; and the use of a

wooden printing press. Gutenberg's method for making type is traditionally considered to have included a type of metal alloy and a hand mould for casting type. Gutenberg went through a process of which he used the basics: paper, ink, and a wooden press. He first cut each letter, symbol, or punctuation mark in steel. He then created a casting for each form, using a mixture of lead and pieces a brittle silver and white metalloid. This mix was soft and was able to be melted easily and when cooled it expanded. New, humanist writings needed new types of fonts which were more secular, legible, and elegant. Page designs were becoming lighter. The artisans then looked into the past to create better typography. They looked at the ancient Roman text but the ancient Romans didn't have an uppercase. While modifying designs for an uppercase, Renaissance typographers had to spend more time working on lowercase letter shapes. As a basis, they took Carolingian scripts that were common in early Middle age, but changed them significantly to match the Roman uppercase letters that they created and to better adapt it to Gutenberg's printing technology. An incunabulum is a book, single sheet, or image that was printed before the year 1501 in Europe. The first recorded use of incunabula as a printing term is in a pamphlet by Bernard von Mallinckrodt There are two types of incunabula: 1. The xylographic (made from a single carved or sculpted block for each page) 2. The typographic (made with movable type on a printing press in the style of Johann Gutenberg). (Refer to image 12) It does not reflect any notable developments in the printing process around the year 1500. Incunabulum refers to the earliest printed books, completed at a time when some books were still being hand-copied. The gradual spread of printing ensured that there was great variety in the texts chosen for printing and the styles in which they appeared. Many early typefaces were copied on local forms of writing or derived from the various European forms of Gothic script, but there were also some derived from documentary scripts and types modeled on humanistic hands. These humanistic typefaces are often used today and are barely modified, in digital form. Aldus Manutius was a Humanist scholar who became a tutor to rich families. He was interested in producing books of small format for scholars at low cost. He designed and cut the first complete font of the Greek alphabet, adding a series of tied letters, similar to the conventional signs used by scribes. To save space in Latin texts he had a type designed after the Italian cursive script; it is said to be the script of Petrarch. This was the first italic type used in books. Claude Garamond was a Parisian publisher. He was one of the leading type designers of his time, and several of the typefaces he designed are still in use today. Garamond came to prominence in 1541, when three of his Greek typefaces were requested for a royally ordered book series by Robert Estienne. Garamond based them on the handwritings of Angelo Vergecio, the King's Librarian at Fontainebleau. William Caslon was an English gunsmith and typographic designer. In 1716 he started a business in London as an engraver of gun locks and barrels and as a bookbinder's tool cutter. Doing this then brought him into contact with printers he was encouraged to create a new form of typography by William Bowyer.

The distinction and legibility of his type secured him the patronage of the leading printers of his day in England. His typefaces were influenced by Dutch typefaces common in England. His work influenced John Baskerville and is in actual fact the creator of Transitional types, which in turn led to Modern types. Caslon typefaces were very popular and used for many important printed works, including the first printed version of the Declaration of Independence.

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