Blog post #2

This class was actually really interesting. It reminded me of last semester and studying the history of Advertising!
We started by giving a small recap of what we had been looking at in the previous class with the beginning of visual communication. 

Before the invention of writing, an important attribute for a person to have was storytelling. You had to be a good storyteller, with a good memory of the traditional stories. 
This is how it all began, with the word of mouth passing information from one place to another, and consequently one generation to the other.

Following this comes the notion of communicating through images (The Lascaux cave being one of the most primitive examples). The Phoenicians took the idea of writing and combined it with how an object sounds. The Greek then took this a step ahead, and developed the idea a bit more; which then consequently was taken by the romans who expanded it, and came up with the roman alphabet.

Now fast forwarding ahead to when printing first appeared, we compared an illustration of
the time representing the process within a printing shop. We noticed though, that the process is very similar to the one we see today. Personally it makes me wonder where we will be in a few years time, if there hasn’t been much change in the printing process since that time. Will we settle for this and continue to expand on the interactive media as well as virtual books? leaving this process only for traditional print making? I’m afraid we probably all have the same answer to that question.

Nonetheless, if we go back and consider the impact this invention made in society at the time, it makes us wonder if it would be possible to experience something similar in today’s society. Something outside of the digital world, an invention as revolutionary as the printing press and creation of books.

Take Gutenberg for example. Partly because of him, education was fundamentally altered in society. Human dialogue was able to take place at a global scale. Share books, share ideas.

An invention that gave the idea of design a new face. The bible, News papers, advertising came along, and with this importance of type and typefaces in printing. The use of color, structure and hierarchy also began to be considered. which all helped in the publicizing of all these mediums.

The rococo movement became a big part of this era. It also brought with it copperplate engraving, the change in letterform styles within thick and thin. Though unfortunately the French Revolution leads to a rejection of that decorative design.

After this came the industrial revolution, which led to consumerism and greed though on the plus side it was allowing for the growth of literacy and education.

The five Historical Families, typefaces are:
Old Style
Transitional
Modern
Egyptian
Sans Serif

All of which were developed during this revolutionary period of time!