Lecture 2

Important topics of the second lecture.

• Railroads were put into place which provided rapid transportation of goods.
• Type founders and illustrators were inventing every possible design permutation and all manner of decoration.
• Typography was stripped of it's historical evolution for the sake of commerce.
• The form of the book became casualty of the industrial revolution
• Type and book design became casualties of novel graphic expressions for commercial consumption.
• Scrap trading cards were issued.
• Chromolithography began.
• Advertising and packaging for the masses used lithographic naturalism.
• Typeforms product of the illustrative influence of chromolithography.
• Signboard battles.
• Monotype
• Industrial revolution had radically altered printing.
• Editorial design established the division of labor for magazines and editorial design
• First Ad Agency in 1841. Volney Palmer of Philadelphia.
• Total Design
• Kelmscott Press
• Art Nouveau's visual quality was very linear with floral and organic qualities.
• Modern Poster
• Jugendstil and Sezessionstil were the final phases of Art Nouveau
• Peter Behrens and the 'New Objectivity'
• Railway Type

I found it to be very interesting how creating graphic art has escalated since chromolithography. It was a catalyst for new styles of artwork for the time it was created in. It was also interesting to see its link to other international artwork, like the Japanese Ukiyo-e prints. Learning about the transitions of styles through time due to artistic realizations was very intriguing. For instance, the sudden contrast of Art Nouveau's organic and floral persona to the more modernist geometric look was surprising. Everything has to change sometime, though.

Lecture 1

Important topics of the first lecture:

• Sumeritans were the original keepers of records
• Cylinder seals lead the way for trademarking
• Cuneiform influenced Hieroglyphics
• Papyrus was the first most flexible writing surface, could be rolled into a scroll, worked on both sides, etc.
• Egyptian innovations helped trigger the development of the Phoenician and Greco-Roman alphabet
• Logograms are graphic characters that represent entire words
• World's first known printed book on paper is a Chinese manuscript about the Buddha's revelations.
• Chinese invented printing
• First moveable type was made in 1045 A.D. by Pi Sheng, a Chinese Alchemist.
• Phoenicians created a system of 22 phonetic signs, replacing complexity of cuneiform and Egyptian scripts.
• The "mono line script"
• unicials
• Monumental, square, and rustic capitals
• Illuminated manuscripts were a major reason for what books are like today.
• First use of space between words by Celtic Calligarphers
• First printed type used by Gutenberg was Textura.
• Period of Incunabula - all books made with moveable type.
• Garamond - first type designer to work independent of prints by establishing a type foundry in 1530
• Bodoni constructed an alphabet of interchangable parts.
• 20th century fat face letters, bold letters, slab serif, sans serif

It was very interesting to see the creation and evolution of type throughout history. It seems like every time a new culture learned about writing, something new greatly impacted writing and alphabets for the rest of time, setting it on a new path. The processes of creating letterforms in themselves was very intriguing. The geometry and the sacredness of the art is amazing. I feel like with the creation of computers and mass production typography may have lost it's sanctity over the years. Hopefully it will remain such an art form for some practitioners.