arh346: history of graphic design (and more): 02/15/18

Thursday, February 15, 2018

William Pickering's "The Elements of Euclid"

William Pickering's cover from The Elements of Euclid (1847). Pickering’s most notable publications include Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 1822, Decameron (with Stothard engravings) in 1825, William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, amongst others. Pickering was a prolific publisher in England in the early 1800s, publishing prose, as well as archelogical publications.

Here a detailed explanation of the book's importance in modern graphic design.

letter and imagery contribute to create a decorative composition typical of colonialism

the design has a bit of populous, business-like, direct, local. below, scary. people got the message.

visualizing complexity: charts

first, the chart had to be created by a math geek, the idea being to render a number as a curve. nothing better than the original design of william playfair (1759-1823), a political economist and a product of the scottish enlightenment, and johann heinrich lambert (1728-1777). together, they more or less popularized the idea that data could be presented to a mass audience.

a great history of charts here

advertising was the first specialty to become fully established

By late 19th century when the advertising agency of N.W. Ayer & Son was founded. Ayer and Son offered to plan, create, and execute complete advertising campaigns for its customers. By 1900 the advertising agency had become the focal point of creative planning, and advertising was firmly established as a profession. Around the same time, in France, Charles-Louis Havas extended the services of his news agency, Havas to include advertisement brokerage, making it the first French group to organize. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in newspapers. N. W. Ayer & Son was the first full-service agency to assume responsibility for advertising content. N.W. Ayer opened in 1869, and was located in Philadelphia.

His Master's Voice 1900

RCA Victor'sHis Master's Voice 1900

On September 15, 1899, the Gramophone Company offered Mark Barraud £100 for a painting depictring his dog listening to a gramophone. The painting was purchased, and by the time of his death on August 29, 1924, Barraud had been commissioned by the Gramophone and Victor companies to make 24 copies of his painting. This made "Nipper" the dog the most famous dog in the world.

many poster artists saw their work as a democratic art form

the product's name is discreetly added as lettering on millais bar of soap, but it was the titling type to which the soap bubble seemed to attach that placed the image squarely on a commercial frame. some of millais contemporaries thought he had degraded himself through this association. competing advertisers were keen to find images that would promote the same recognition for their own products. so, a tension arose over the distinction between fine art and graphic art. it was argued that a moral or spiritual purpose belonged to the former, while crass commercial motives drove the latter. this sentimental use of the image of a child making fragile soap bubbles linked pears' to purity, innocence and gentleness, which appealed to females consumers.

Science for everyone

"The illustrator of this striking cover takes full advantage of the image of a chic eye catching young woman to set off the effect of scientific perspective that is far more arresting. While we see her body, we also see right through it, to her bones. The promise of science as superior knowledge is given a clear graphic form. This is how graphic design extends the realm of knowledge by visual means" (GDHCG).

graphic skills became more specialized and professionalized

Charles Dickens's objections to Millais's style

Dickens circa 1851

can you believe this dickensian tirade?

You behold the interior of a carpenter's shop. In the foreground of that carpenter's shop is a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown; who appears to have received a poke in the hand, from the stick of another boy with whom he has been playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for the contemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness, that (supposing it were possible for any human creature to exist for a moment with that dislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England. Two almost naked carpenters, master and journeyman, worthy companions of this agreeable female, are working at their trade; a boy, with some small flavor of humanity in him, is entering with a vessel of water; and nobody is paying any attention to a snuffy old woman who seems to have mistaken that shop for the tobacconist's next door, and to be hopelessly waiting at the counter to be served with half an ounce of her favourite mixture. Wherever it is possible to express ugliness of feature, limb, or attitude, you have it expressed. Such men as the carpenters might be undressed in any hospital where dirty drunkards, in a high state of varicose veins are received. Their very toes have walked out of Saint Giles's.- Charles Dickens, commenting Millais' Christ in the House of His Parents below.*

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*The Pre-Raphaelite Body: Fear and Desire in Painting, Poetry, and Criticism, (Clarendon Press: 1998). p. 16.

(the Dutch influence) Lebeau's batik style

An example of Chris Lebeau's design. He produced some of the most striking and complex designs in batik and was successful in assimilating traditional patterns and colors of the East Indies into his own work.

Lebeau's book design

What is batik?

Of Javanese origin, amba ('to write') and titik ('dot' or 'point'), also 'to tattoo' from the use of a needle in the process. The word is first recorded in English in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1880, in which it is spelled battik.

Lebeau's wall paper (circa 1920s)

what do we see here?

1- a cloth that is traditionally made using a manual wax-resist dyeing technique.
2- Javanese traditional batik has meanings rooted to the Javanese conceptualization of the universe.
3- Traditional colours include indigo, dark brown, and white, which represent the three major Hindu Gods (Brahmā, Vishnu, and Śiva).
4- This is related to the fact that natural dyes are most commonly available in indigo and brown. Certain patterns can only be worn by nobility; traditionally, wider stripes or wavy lines of greater width indicated higher rank.

arts and crafts and ruskin's credo

Room by William Morris

what's the idea behind the arts and crafts movement?

1- to reestablish the tie between beautiful work and the worker & 2- return to honesty in design (not to be found in mass-produced items). 3- the talent and creativity of the individual craftsman who attempts to create a total environment.

these are some results:

* Richly detailed Gothic style,
* Interior walls, either white-washed or covered in wallpaper depicting medieval themes. * Pottery and textile designs are intricate, colorful and realistic.
* While the original intent was to provide handmade goods to the common man, the cost of paying craftsmen an honest wage resulted in higher prices than the common man could afford.

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Ruskin's aesthetic credo: 1- Art is not a matter of taste, but involves the whole man. These facts must be perceived by the senses, or felt; not learnt. 2- Beauty of form is revealed in organisms which have developed perfectly according to their laws of growth, and so give, in his own words, 'the appearance of felicitous fulfillment of function.' 3- This fulfillment of function depends on all parts of an organism cohering and cooperating. 4- Great art is the expression of epochs where people are united by a common faith and a common purpose, accept their laws, believe in their leaders, and take a serious view of human destiny.

Howard Pyle

Marooned Pirate

Howard Pyle revolutionized illustration, both through his own work, which introduced a new level of drama, action and visual excitement to what was largely a staid and restrained art form at the time, and through his influence on his students, who included some of the finest illustrators in America.

the mermaid, 1910

Collectively, Pyle and his students helped usher in the “Golden Age of American Illustration”. His Durer-influenced pen and ink illustrations are among the finest of the 19th and early 20th Century. He was one of the first illustrators to embrace and understand the new four-color printing process, and his paintings are remarkable for their ground-breaking color, dramatic compositions and emotional impact.