THE

HISTORY
OF
GRAPHIC
DESIGN
There is a German word, Zeitgeist, that does not have
an English equivalent. It means the spirit of the time,
and refers to the cultural trends and tastes that are
characteristic of a given era. The immediacy and
ephemeral nature of graphic design, combined with
its link with the social, political, and economic life
of its culture, enable it to more closely express the
Zeitgeist of an epoch than many other forms of human
expression. Ivan Chermayeff, a noted designer, has
said: the design of history is the history of design.
Speech---the ability to make sounds in order to communicate. Writing is
visual counterpart of speech. Marks, symbols, pictures, or letters drawn or written
upon a surface or substrate became a graphic counterpart of the spoken word or
unspoken thought. Early Paleolithic cave paintings, Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian
hieroglyphics, and the Phoenician alphabet enabled society to stabilize itself and
laws to be created. The Egyptians were the first people to produce illustrated
manuscripts in which words and pictures were combined to communicate
information. The invention of writing brought people the luster of civilization and
made it possible to preserve hard-won knowledge, experiences, and thoughts.

the history of graphic design

 Hall of the Bulls. Lascaux. c. 15,000 - 10,000 B.C.
early Sumerian pictographic tablet
The Rosetta Stone c. 197 - 196 B.C.
Papyrus of Hunefer c. 1370 B.C.
Code of Hammurabi c. 1800 B.C.

2
An alphabet is a set of visual symbols of Syria and Israel. The development of the
or characters used to represent the alphabet may have been an act of geography,
elementary sounds of a spoken language. for the Phoenician city-states became a hub
The hundreds of signs and symbols required in the ancient world and the crossroads of
by cuneiform and hieroglyphs were replaced international trade. They were able to absorb
by twenty or thirty easily learned elementary cuneiform from Mesopotamia in the west and
signs. The Minoan civilization that existed on Egyptian hieroglyphics and scripts from the
the Mediterranean island of Crete ranks behind south. The Phoenician alphabet was adopted
only Egypt and Mesopotamia in its early by the ancient Greeks and spread through
level of advancement in the ancient Western their city-states around 1000 B.C. The Greeks
world. Minoan or Cretan picture symbols applied geometric structure and order to the
were in use as early as 2800 B.C. While the uneven Phoenician characters, converting them
alphabets inventors are unknown, Northwest into art forms of great harmony and beauty. This
Semitic peoples of the western Mediterranean alphabet would eventually father the Etruscan,
region are widely believed to be the source. Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets and, through these
The earliest surviving examples come from ancestors, became the grandfather of alphabet
ancient Phoenicia, now Lebanon and parts systems used throughout the world today.

the history of graphic design

 The Phaistos Disk
Semitic tablet
Timotheus. The Persians. 4th century B.C.
Trajans column. capitalis monumentalis. A.D. 114
capitalis quadrata & capitalis rustica

4
Legend holds that Tsang two thousand years. Dynastic design and printing was playing
Chieh, who was inspired records attribute the invention cards. A benchmark in block
to invent writing by of paper to the eunuch and printingreproducing beautiful
contemplating the claw marks high governmental official Tsai calligraphy with perfectionwas
of birds and footprints of Lun in A.D. 105. This process established in China by A.D. 1000
animals, first wrote Chinese continued almost unchanged until and has never been surpassed.
about 1800 B.C. Chinese papermaking was mechanized in The Chinese contribution to the
characters are logograms, the nineteenth century England. evolution of visual communications
graphic signs that represent Printing, a major breakthrough was formidable. During Europes
an entire word. The earliest in human history, was invented thousand-year medieval period,
known Chinese writing is called by the Chinese. Because of this, Chinas invention of paper and
chiaku-wen script, which was China became the first society in printing spread slowly westward,
followed by chin-wen script, which ordinary people had daily arriving in Europe just as the
Hsiao chuan, and chen-shu; of contact with printed images. An Renaissance began.
which has been in use for nearly early form of Chinese graphic

the history of graphic design

Chinese calligraphy. chin-wen
inscribed oracle bone / shell
Li Fangying. From Album of Eight Leaves
The Diamond Sutra. A.D. 868

6
 All decorated and illustrated handwritten books produced from the late Roman Empire until
printed books replaced manuscripts after typography was developed in Europe around A.D. 1450 are
called illuminated manuscripts. Two notable traditions of manuscript illumination are the Eastern in Islamic
countries and the Western in Europe, dating from classical antiquity. The use of visual embellishment to expand
the word became very important, and illuminated manuscripts were produced with extraordinary care and design
sensitivity. The invention of parchment, which was so much more durable than papyrus, and the codex format, which
could take thicker paint because it did not have to be rolled, opened new possibilities for design and illustration.
After the Western Roman Empire collapsed in A.D. 476, and era of dislocation and uncertainty ensued. Christian
monasteries became the cultural, educational, and intellectual centers. Celtic design flourished and was abstract and
extremely complex. Charlemagnes Caroline miniscules of the ninth-century A.D. become the forerunner of our
contemporary lowercase alphabet. During the 1200s the rise of universities created an expanding market for books.
Textura, a lettering style whose repetition of verticals capped with pointed serifs, became the dominant mode of
Gothic lettering for scribes. During the same years when the Limbourg brothers were creating handmade books,
a new means of visual communicationwoodblock printingappeared in Europe. The production of illuminated
manuscripts continued through the fifteenth-century A.D. and even into the sixteenth-century, but this thousand-
year-old craft, dating back to antiquity, was doomed to extinction by the typographic book.

the history of graphic design

The Vatican Vergil. early 5th century A.D.
The Book of Durrow. A.D. 680
The Book of Kells. Chi-Rho page A.D. 800
Ormesby Psalter. early 1300s A.D.

8
 Xylography is the technical term for the relief printing from a raised surface.
Typography is the term for printing with independent, movable, and reusable bits of metal or
wood, each of which has a raised letterform on one face. The invention of typography ranks near
the creation of writing as one of the most important advances in civilization. Several factors
created a climate in Europe that made typography feasible. The demand for books had become
insatiable. The emerging literate middle class and students in the rapidly expanding universities
had seized the monopoly on literacy from the clergy, creating a vast new market for reading
material. The slow and expensive process of bookmaking had changed little in one thousand years.
The value of a book was equal to the value of a farm or vineyard. Papermaking had made its way
to Europe by now, so a plentiful substrate was available. Early European block printing, movable
typography, and copperplate engraving, marked milestones in bookmaking technology of this time.

the history of graphic design

Jack of Diamonds. woodblock playing card. 1400 A.D.
woodblock of St. Christopher 1423 A.D.
Biblia Pauperum 1465 A.D.
Jost Amman. woodcut for Standebuch 1568 A.D.

10
The Latin word incunabula means cradle with some color added in later as highlights.
or baby linen. Its connotations of birth and German artists and printers transferred the craft
beginnings caused seventeenth-century writers to England, France, and Spain. Because printing
to adopt it as a name for books printed from required a huge capital investment and large
Gutenbergs invention of typography until the end trained labor force, Nuremberg, Germany became
of the fifteenth-century. By 1480 twenty-three the center for printing and housed Germanys
European towns, thirty-one Italian towns, seven most esteemed printer, Anton Koberger. The
French towns, six Spanish and Portuguese towns, broadsheeta single leaf of paper printed on both
and one English town had presses. Typography sidesbecame a major means for information
is the major communications advance between dissemination from the invention of printing
the invention of writing and twentieth-century until the middle of the nineteenth century. Italy
electronic mass communications; it played a pivotal employed its own printers in 1465 A.D., France in
role in the social, economic, and religious upheavals 1470, and Spain in 1473. During the remarkable
that occurred during the fifteenth and sixteenth first decades of typography, German printers and
centuries. Design innovation took place in graphic artists established a national tradition of
Germany, where woodcut artists and typographic the illustrated book and spread the new medium
printers collaborated to develop the illustrated of communication throughout Europe and even
book and broadsheet. German style traditionally to the New World. At the same time, a cultural
focused on Gothic text, and complex realistic renaissance emerged in Italy and swept graphic
woodcut illustrations in primarily black and white, design in unprecedented new directions.

the history of graphic design

Philippe Pigouchet. Horae Beatus Virginis 1498 A.D.
Albrecht Durer. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 1498 A.D.
Auerswalds Ringer-Kunst 1539 A.D.
Albrecht Durer. Nuremberg Chronicle 1493 A.D.

12
 It was Venice who led the way in Italian typographic book design. Renaissance
designers loved floral decoration. The book continued to be collaboration between the
typographic printer and the illuminator. The printing press eliminated the manuscript, but gave
new jobs to calligraphers that now taught people how to read and write. During this time, there
was a bit of conflict due to the church trying to control the flow of information. Erhard Ratdolt
changed the initials and borders into design elements when making layouts instead of just
decoration, and was famous for the three-sided border. One primer artist of the Aldine Press,
Griffo was a typeface designer and punch cutter. He researched older styles to produce a more
accurate Roman type font. Aldus Manutius influenced typefaces such as Garamond, and also
invented the idea of a small pocket book. Geoffrey Troy was an illuminator, typesetter, and all
around artist. He made stylebooks that influenced the style of type for years to come. Claude
Garamond is the father of the font Garamond that is still used today; characterized by its ease
of readability. Christophe Plantine tried using copper sheets instead of woodcuts, changing the
way in which printing was done. The first printing press was set up in North America was by
Stephan and Mathew Daye, sparking affordable printing in the colonies.

the history of graphic design

 Geoffroy Troy. Champ Fleury 1529
Geoffroy Troy. Les heures de Jean Lallemant 1506
Johann Oporinus. De Humani Corporis Fabrica 1543

14
This era is characterized by a simultaneous standardization and increase in creativity. For the
longest time typesets were proprietary to the press they were intended to be used on. Fournier le Jeune changed
all of this by instituting a standardization method. King Louis the XIV also wanted this and established the
royal printing office. The result was a mathematically designed font called Romain du Roi, the official type of
the royal family. The fanciful French art and architecture that flourished from about 1720 until around 1770 was
called rococo. Florid and intricate, rococo ornament is composed of S and C curves with scrollwork, tracery, and
plant forms derived from nature, classical and oriental art, and even medieval sources. William Playfair designed
information graphics by using Rene Descartes Cartesian plane with its x and y-axis. Type and design ideas were
imported across the English Channel from Holland until a native genius emerged in the person of William Caslon.
This man designed almost all of the fonts that were used exclusively in Britain for almost sixty years. While his
designs were not as dramatic, fashionable, or innovative as some, they were easily readable and legible making them
comfortable. Another typographer, John Baskerville was involved in all elements of book making, he made a ton
of money selling Japaned wares and returned to typography. His style is a bridge between the old style and the
modern type design, and the font still bears his name today. John was obsessed with perfection and developed new
inks and other improvements for the press. Giambattista Bondi was a private printer who started the trend of clean
and very balanced modern page layout. Bondi focused on perfection cleanliness and an over all mechanical precision
of his works. Fancoise Didot invented a more efficient means of printing in which individually type set letters were
used not to make a print but to make a single plate which was then used in the press. This technique was called
stereotyping. William Blake designed illustrations that incorporated the letterforms into the illustration. His new
style of free flowing illustrations however was not as widely accepted and he died poor.

the history of graphic design

16
As the Industrial Revolution shifts into place, capitalism, mass production, and how
advertising plays a key role in attracting customers and pushing products all emerge. French
and American revolutions lead to better education amongst people, and graphic communication became very
important. A parade of new technologies floods the nineteenth century with more type and fonts, the advent
of photography and the ability to print photographs. New categories of typeface designs emerged ranging
from novelty poster fonts, to functional san serifs. There were several new innovations in typography, including
Cotterell, Jackson, and Thornes fat faces, the Egyptian style typefaces and 3D fonts, and the use of sans-serif
fonts. American printer Darius Wells introduced wooden types to replace metal type molds for printing. They
were half the cost and offered far more flexibility than casting metal molds. This led to a surge in advertising
producing work posters, handbills, ads and more. As the demand for printing rose, something had to be
done to maximize its efficiency, so Friedrich Koenig devised the steam press. Improvements were made and
eventually 4,000 sheets per hour could be produced. Paper was mass- produced and supplied by Henry and
Sealy Fourdrinier, whose idea is still in use today. Mergenthaler invents the linotype in 1886, and the machine
could do the work of 8-hand composers and led to a surge in production, the lower costs of books, and new
types of papers. At the same time, Joseph Niepce became the first person to produce a photographic image.
Talbot was also working on his own methods of photography and first produced camera less shadow images
called calotype style to be used in the camera obscura. Fredrick Archer introduced a wet plate idea that was
far superior that the previous two, which went into the first camera. George Eastman introduces the Kodak
camera to the public in 1888 and gave everyone the ability to capture images. As far as American editorial and
advertising design, the Harpers brothers became the largest printing and publishing company in the world
shortly after its creation in the early 1800s. Thomas Nast was hired and went on to produce some of the most
popularized woodcuts and was seen as the father of American political cartooning. The golden age of American
illustration ran from the 1890s to the 1940s. Volney Palmer in Philadelphia opened the first ad agency in 1841.

the history of graphic design

 Daguerre. daguerreotype 1839
The Pencil of Nature 1844
Joseph Niepce. photolithographic print 1822
The first steam-powered cylinder press 1814

18
As the nineteenth century wore on, the quality of book design and production became a casualty of the Industrial
Revolution, with a few notable exceptions, such as the books by the English publisher William Pickering. Pickering
played an important role in the separation of graphic design from printing production, which this led him to
commission new woodblock ornaments, initials and illustrations. His edition of The Elements of Euclid was a
landmark in book design, using geometric shapes with primary colors within the text making it easier for readers
to understand. The Arts and Craft movement took over England; this was an action against the social, moral
and artistic confusion of the Industrial Revolution. Design had to return to handcrafted works, no more mass-
produced goods. The leader of this movement, William Morris, wanted to point toward the union of art and labor
in service to society. Arthur H. Mackmurdo led a group called the Century Guild, whose goal was to render all
branches of art the sphere, no longer of the tradesmen, but of the artist. Mackmurdo was the forerunner for the
private press movement and the renaissance of book design. He anticipated art nouveau as well--and sought out
to regain the design standards of high-quality materials and careful craftsmanship. The Hobby Horse was the
first 1880s periodical to introduce the British Arts and Craft viewpoints to a European audience. The Century
Guild disbanded in 1888. Morris studied large prints of Nicolas Jensons letterforms and drew them over and
over. Punches were made and type founding of Golden began at the Kelmscott Press. At this location, Morris
recaptured the beauty of incunabula books and taught that design could bring art to the working class, although the
Kelmscott Press books were only available to the wealthy. Charles Ashbee founded the Guild of Handicraft in hopes
of restoring the holistic experience of apprenticeship, which had been destroyed by the subdivision of labor and
machine production. This school unified the teaching of design and theory with workshop experience. Able neither
to secure state support nor to compete with the state-aided technical schools, the School of Handicraft finally closed
January 1895. The Guild of Handicraft though, inspired by both socialism and the Arts and Crafts movement,
flourished as a cooperative where workers shared in governance and profits. A vigorous revitalization of typography
had been awakened and the passion for Victorian typefaces started to decline as imitations of Kelmscott typefaces
were followed by revivals of other classical typeface designs. Garamond, Plantin, Caslon, Baskerville, and Bodoni
these typeface designs of past masters were studied, recut, and offered for hand and keyboard composition during
the first three decades of the twentieth century. The long-range effect of Morris was a significant upgrading of book
design and typography throughout the world, and continuing a century after his death.

the history of graphic design

20
An increase in trade and communication between Asian and European countries in the
nineteenth century caused a cultural collision; both cultures changed as a result. Asian art
provided European and North American artists and designers with new approaches to space, color, drawing
conventions, and subject matter that were radically unlike Western traditions. This revitalized graphic design
during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Ukiyo-e means pictures of the floating world and defines
an art movement of Japans Tokugawa period. Earliest works of this time were screen paintings depicting the
entertainment districts called the floating world of Edo (modernTokyo) and other cities. Artists embraced
the woodblock print. Hishikawa Moronobu was respected as the first master of the ukiyo-e print. Art Nou-
veau was an international decorative style that thrived during the two decades (1890-1910) that guided the
turn of the century. Art Nouveau encompassed all the design arts; architecture, furniture, product design,
fashion, and graphics. The identifying visual quality of Art Nouveau is an organic, plantlike line. It is a tran-
sitional style that evolved from the historicism that dominated design for most of the nineteenth century.
During the period there was a close collaboration between visual artists and writers. The new Freedom of
the Press law led to a booming poster industry of designers, printers, and afficheurs. The streets became an
art gallery for the nation. Even the poorest worker saw his environment transformed by images and color.
English Art Nouveau was primarily concerned with graphic design and illustration rather than architectural
or product design. Art Nouveau arrived in Germany where it was called Jugendstil (young style) after a new
magazine, Jugend (youth). Jugenstil had strong British and French influences.

the history of graphic design

22
The turn of the century invites retrospection. As one century closes and a new one begins, writers and
artists begin to question conventional wisdom and speculate on new possibilities for changing the circumstances of
culture. As the nineteenth century drew to a close and the twentieth century began, designers across the disciplines
of architectural, fashion, graphic, and product design searched for new forms of expression. Art nouveau proved
that inventing new forms, rather than copying forms from nature or historical models, was a viable approach. A
new aesthetic and design philosophy moved away from the beauty of organic drawing. In need of addressing the
changes in social, economic, and cultural conditions because of the turn of the century, Frank Lloyd Wright became
at the forefront of the emerging modern movement. The Four, Charles Mackintosh, J. Herbert McNair, Margaret
Macdonald, and Frances Macdonald met and collaborated creating the Glasgow School and developing a unique
style. The Vienna Secession came into being on April 3rd of 1897, when the younger members of the Kunstlerhaus
resigned in a stormy protest. This became a countermovement to the floral art nouveau that flourished in other parts
of Europe. Peter Behrens played a major role in charting a course for design in the first decade of the new century.
He sought typographic reform, was an early advocate of sans-serif type, and used a grid system to structure space
in his layouts. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pioneering designers in Germany, Scotland, and
Austria broke with art nouveau to chart new directions in response to personal and societal needs. Their concern for
spatial relationships, inventive form, and functionality formed the groundwork for design in the new century.

the history of graphic design

24
The first two decades of the twentieth century were a time of ferment and change
that radically altered all aspects of the human condition. The social, political, cultural, and
economic character of life was caught in fluid upheaval. In Europe, monarchy was replaced by de-
mocracy, socialism, and communism. Technology and scientific advances transformed commerce and
industry. The motorcar and the airplane radically altered transportation. The motion picture and wireless
radio transmission foretold a new era of human communications. Beginning in 1908 with the Turk-
ish revolution that restored constitutional government and the Bulgarian declaration of independence,
colonized and subjugated peoples began to awaken and demand independence. The slaughter during
the first of two global wars, fought with the destructive weapons of technology, shook the traditions and
institutions of Western civilization to their foundations. Amidst this turbulence, it is not surprising that
visual art and design experienced a series of creative revolutions that questioned long-held values and
approaches to organizing space as well as the role of art and design in society. The traditional objective
view of the world was shattered. The representation of external appearances did not fulfill the needs and
vision of the emerging European avant-garde. Elemental ideas about color and form, social protest, and
the expression of Freudian theories and deeply personal emotional states occupied many artists. Cubism
and futurism, Dada and surrealism, De Stijl, suprematism, constructivism, and expressionism directly
influenced the graphic language of form and visual communications in this century.

the history of graphic design

26
The Beggarstaff brothers, James Pryde and William Nicholson opened an advertising
agency in 1894 creating a new technique called collage where individual pieces were
cut out and moved around to create the desired look. This resulted in flat planes of color.
Their Kassama corn flour was artistically successful but a financial disaster. The reductive, flat color
design school that emerged in Germany early in the twentieth century is called Plakastil or poster
style. Its style included strong color panels, large typography, simple images, with a focus on brand
name. After WWI, the nations of Europe and North America sought to return to normalcy. The war
machinery was turned toward peacetime needs, and a decade of unprecedented prosperity dawned
for the victorious Allies. Faith in the machine and technology was at an all time high. This ethic
gained expression through art and design. The term art deco is used to identify popular geometric
works of the 1920s and 1930s. To some extent an extension of art nouveau, it signifies a major
aesthetic sensibility in graphics, architecture, and product design during the decades between the two
world wars. Streamlining, zigzag, moderne, and decorative geometrythese attributes were used to
express the modern era of the machine while still satisfying a passion for decoration.

the history of graphic design

28
 During the postwar years, when Kauffer and Cassandre were applying synthetic
cubisms planes to the poster in England and France, a formal typographic ap-
proach to graphic design emerged in Holland and Russia, where artists saw
clearly the implications of cubism. Visual art could move beyond the threshold of pictorial
imagery into the invention of pure form. Ideas about form and composing space from the new
painting and sculpture were quickly applied to problems of design. Frank Lloyd Wright, the
Glasgow group, the Vienna Secession, Adolf Loos, and Peter Behrens were all moving a heart-
beat ahead of modern painting in their consciousness of plastic volume and geometric form at
the turn of the century. A spirit of innovation was present in art and design, and new ideas were
in abundance. By the end of World War I, graphic designers, architects, and product designers
were energetically challenging prevailing notions about form and function.

the history of graphic design

30
The Bauhaus was the logical consequence of a German concern for design in
industrial society that began in the opening years of the century. Aldous Huxley
wrote in 1928, It is obvious, that the machine is here to stay. Whole armies of William
Morrises and Tolstoys could not now expel it. Let us then exploit them to create beautya
modern beauty, while we are about it. Ideas from all the advanced art and design movements
were explored, combined, and applied to problems of functional design and machine production.
Twentieth-century furniture, architecture, product design, and graphics were shaped by the
work of its faculty and students, and a modern design aesthetic emerged. Started by Walter
Gropius, who combined the fine arts school Weimar Art Academy with applied arts school
Weimar Arts & Crafts School to form the Bauhaus school. Students were taught how to build
things, and also technical knowledge such as the use of space. No distinction was made between
the two styles. In 1933 the schools faculty members included: Walter Gropius, Paul Klee,
Wassily Kandinsky, Johannes Itten, Lyonel Feininger, Van Doesburg, Oscar Schlemmer, Joost
Schmidt, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.

the history of graphic design

32
The modern movement did not gain an early foothold in the United States.
When the fabled 1913 armory show introduced modernism to America, it generated
a storm of protest and provoked public rejection of modern art and design. Modernist
European design did not become a significant influence in America until the 1930s.
American graphic design in the 1920s and 1930s was dominated by traditional
illustration. However, the modern approach slowly gained ground on several fronts: book
design, editorial design for fashion and business magazines catering to affluent audiences,
and promotional and corporate graphics. When Tschicholds Elementare Typographie
insert was publicized in American advertising and graphic art venues, it caused
considerable excitement and turmoil. Most disliked this new idea, but a small number of
American typographers and designers recognized the vitality and functionalism of the
new ideas. In 1928 and 1929 new typeface designs, including Futura and Kabel, became
available in America, spurring the modern movement forward.

the history of graphic design

34
During the 1950s a design movement emerged configuration. The initiators of this movement believed
from Switzerland and Germany that has been sans serif typography expresses the spirit of a more
called Swiss design, or the International progressive age and that mathematical grids are the
Typographic Style. The objective clarity of this most legible and harmonious means for structuring
design movement won converts throughout the world. information. More important than the visual
It remained a major force for over two decades, and its appearance of this work is the attitude developed by its
influence continues into the twenty-first century. The early pioneers about their profession. These trailblazers
visual characteristics of this international style include a defined design as a socially useful and important
unity of design achieved by asymmetrical organization activity. Personal expression and eccentric solutions
of the design elements on a mathematically constructed were rejected, while a more universal and scientific
grid; objective photography and copy that present approach to design problem solving was embraced. In
visual and verbal information in a clear and factual this paradigm, the designers define their roles not as
manner, free from the exaggerated claims of propaganda artists but as objective conduits for spreading important
and commercial advertising; and the use of sans-serif information between components of society. Achieving
typography set in a flush-left and ragged-right margin clarity and order is the ideal.

the history of graphic design

36
 Talented European immigrants seeking to escape the political climate of
totalitarianism imported the first wave of modern design in America. The 1940s
saw steps toward an original American approach to modernist design. While borrowing
freely from the work of European designers, Americans added new forms and concepts.
European design was often theoretical and highly structured; American design was pragmatic,
intuitive, and less formal in its approach to organizing space. Just as Paris had done in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, New York City assumed that role during the middle
of the twentieth century. The city nurtured creativity and the prevailing climate attracted
individuals of great talent and enabled them to realize their potential. Paul Rand initiated the
American approach to modern design. Alvin Lustig, Bradbury Thompson, Saul Bass, Doyle
Dayne Bernbach, and Herb Lubalin were also big players during this time.

the history of graphic design

38
 The technological advances made during World War II were immense. After the
war, productive capacity turned toward consumer goods, and many believed that the outlook
for the capitalist economic structure could be be unending economic expansion and prosperity.
This development appeared closely linked to the eras increasingly important corporations, and
the more perceptive corporate leaders comprehended the need to develop a corporate image
and identity for diverse audiences. Design was seen as a major way to shape a reputation for
quality and reliability. William Goldens CBS trademark, Paul Rands IBM, Westinghouse,
and ABC logo, Chermayeff & Geismar Associates Chase Manhattan Bank of New York, Saul
Bass trademark for Minolta and Bell, Muriel Cooper, Times New Roman, and the MTV logo
have gained increased importance as the world entered the information age. In the last half
of the twentieth century, visual identity gained increased importance as the world entered the
information age. Complex international events, large governmental entities, and multinational
corporations required complex design systems developed by graphic designers to manage
information flow and visual identity. While accomplishing these goats, design systems can also
create a spirit or resonance helping to express and define the very nature of the large organization
or events. The identity of a large organization can be created or redefined by designed.

the history of graphic design

40
 After World War II, the conceptual image in graphic design was introduced. Images
conveyed not merely narrative information but ideas and concepts. The illustrator interpreting a
writers text yielded to the graphic imagist making a statement. A new breed of image-maker was
concerned with the total design of the space and the integration of word and image. The entire his-
tory of visual arts was available to graphic artists as a library of potential forms and images. Par-
ticularly, inspiration was gained from the advance of twentieth-century art movements: the spatial
configurations of cubism; the juxtapositions, dislocations, and scale changes of surrealism; the pure
color loosened from natural reference by expressionism and fauvism; and the recycling of mass-
media images by pop art. Graphic artists had greater opportunity for self-expression, created more
personal images, and pioneered individual styles and techniques. The traditional boundaries became
the fine arts and public visual communications became blurred.

the history of graphic design

42
 By the 1970s many believed the modern era was drawing to a close in art, design, politics,
and literature. The cultural norms of Western society were scrutinized, and the authority of traditional
institutions was questioned. People in many fields embraced the term postmodernism to express a climate
of cultural change. These included architects, economists, feminists, and even theologians. Maddeningly
vague and overused, postmodernism became a byword in the last quarter of the twentieth century. In design,
postmodernism designated the work of architects and designers who were breaking with the international style
so prevalent since the Bauhaus. Postmodern challenged the order and clarity of modern design, particularly
corporate design. Supermannerism and supergraphics were terms coined to discuss anything that broke away
from the modern style. These styles featured bold geographic shapes and colors. And could be seen in design
not only for print but in architecture as well. The term postmodernism does not tell the whole story, because
graphic design is too diverse to fit such a simplistic system. Graphic design, rapidly changing and ephemeral,
was never dominated by the international style the way architecture was. Postmodern graphic design can be
loosely categorized as moving in several major directions: the early extensions of the International Typographic
Style by Swiss designers who broke with the statements of the movement; new-wave typography, which began
in Basel, Switzerland, through the teaching of Wolfgang Weingart; the lively mannerism of the early 1980s,
with significant contributions from the Memphis group and San Francisco designers; retro, the European
vernacular and modern design from the decades between world wars; and the electronic revolution spawned by
the Macintosh computer in the late 1980s, which drew upon all of the earlier pushes.

the history of graphic design

44
the history of graphic design