More about what people think...

As you can see from my video that I posted, many people are confused with the idea of a graphic designer. There are some people in the world that still believe that an artist isn't a real job. If any type of hobby or activity takes up at least 8 hours of someone's day, then I believe it should be considered a job even if they are not being paid for it at the time, they may be offered money in the future. And artists usually become obsessed with their work so they work on their creations for AT LEAST 8 hours a day. Most artists lock themselves in their studio for days and weeks at times. Graphic designers may become this obsessive also, but it is a more accepted job in today's society. Without graphic designers, you wouldn't see the McDonald's golden arch, the Nike swoosh, the FedEx symbol with the arrow showing, or any other logos you can think of! n wikipedia, it states that "A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and advertising. They are also sometimes responsible for typesetting, illustration, user interfaces, and web design, or take a teaching position, although these specialties may be assigned to specialists in various graphic design occupations. A core responsibility of the designer's job is to present information in a way that is both accessible and memorable." These are the actual responsibilities that graphic designers have and it still continues from here. Graphic designers are taking on more and more tasks in companies from just designing layouts to actually developing software for the company. Graphic designing will soon become one of the most important jobs in society.

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Video on Graphic Designers

Here's what people really think about graphic designers...

The Modern Age

The Modern Age consists of twenty-five years in the early 1900s. It birthed a number of art and design movements all that are a part of the Modern Art Movement. It brought out different techniques of design that was for all eyes and not just the rich and elite. The first movement came about in 1905 and was called Plakatstil and it consisted of modern art posters. It was the first time designers could mass produce posters due to the invention of offset lithography. 

Since it was possible to mass produce posters, leaders used this opportunity to create posters for war propaganda and this became very popular in Germany. The problem with this is that it became a very popular item to take into homes and show pride for your country and this continued when artists began creating posters for the Nazi political party. 

Futurism began after even more development in the machinery world because artists were able to place pieces of art in unexpected places. Below is actually a poem book cover done by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and he gathered many of the writer's poems and placed them on the page in different areas to give it a more eye-catching and unexpected look. 

Another way artists displayed some of their poems was by using Dadaism. Dada, meaning "nothing" was an anti-art movement. It was first created by a group of people in Switzerland who were discussed with governments allowing World War I to occur. They showed their anger through poems, art, sculpture, plays and anything that they could mock from traditional arts. Little did they know, Dadaism would also become an expressive way of art.

This is when you start to see everything coming together, including all of the typography that was developed over so many years, and the art and design. With the use of advance machinery, people are finding it easier to get their work out into the world and show their opinion.

Fast Forward Design

I'm going to fast forward a bit, skipping some more of the typography history, and getting to more of the most famous design pieces in history. It mostly all started during the Industrial Revolution between 1765 and 1900. This was a time where people were really pushing the limits. The first type of design we came across was Victorian. It was named after Queen Victoria and the idea was that wherever the eye fell, it would see beauty. 

The next style was Ukiyo-e design style and it came about because restrictions from communicating with the rest of the world were finally removed. This style used images on flat areas of color and pattern illustrated sensual erotic, theatrical, and natural themes. Text was often added into the design by being stamped, block printed, or hand-calligraphed in.

The Arts and Crafts movement came next in 1875 when William Morris of England found designs to be impersonal and low quality because of the mechanization of the industrial revolution. Morris decided to go back to doing everything by hand again. He wanted people to value quality in a product and that is why he began the Arts and Crafts movement. 

The next movement came from the mixed ideas of both Ukiyo-e design and Arts and Crafts design. Art Noveau was developed by designers who appreciated the individuality of artwork and the decorative style. Art Noveau showed the beautiful side of anything. 

The movements discussed are some of the most influential eras that still affect design today. Many designers look back and are inspired by Art Noveau or Ukiyo-e designs and that will continue for many decades to come. 

Developments of Type & Design

After the years of early development of writing, the world began to move forward in a creative sense. During the medieval age, early Christian arts were transformed into religious works. Sometime during the fifth century, people started creating illustrated and illuminated books. They did this for the illiterate religious people. Pope Gregory the Great stated that "in images, the illiterate read". Usually, illuminated manuscripts were covered with gold leaf and rich colors that made the pages look majestic and spiritual. 

Just 300 years later, in 700 CE, the Chinese were developing a woodblock printing process which is called xylography. Raised images and calligraphy were cut onto wooden slabs, which were then inked. The printer would transfer the ink to the paper by placing a piece of paper o the raised inked surface and rubbing the back. Xylography is an example of relief printing which is any printing process in which the ink sits on a raised surface. 

These are very important steps of the graphic design world because these are types of work that you will still see today. Xylography is still used today and you will often see the illuminated manuscripts in religious environments. 

Beginning of Graphic Designers

When most people think of graphic design, they think of modern work such as Shepard Fairey or Stefan Sagmeister, but graphic design really began in the caves of France. The beginning of graphic design can be directly connected to the beginning of typography. The very first designs were created many years ago in caves in Lascaux, France around 10,000 BC. Humans communicated with each other through these drawings of animals, fire, and weapons. 

The next drawings were found recorded in 3000 BC with early Sumerian writing in Mesopotamia. The Sumerian people used pointed styluses to draw pictograms (simplified images illustrating specific words) on clay tablets to create permanent records of business transactions. They later developed a writing system called cuneiform which used ideograms (images that stand for concepts or ideas) instead of pictograms. 

People all over the world were creating their own writing systems. In Egypt, people were developing the hieroglyphics writing system. These also started as pictograms before 3000 BC and eventually evolved into an interesting combination of pictographs, ideograms, and phonograms (symbols that represent sounds). 

As you can see, this is only the first 7,000 years of the beginning of graphic designing. I know at first it may be hard to see the connection, but this all came from the creative sides of peoples' brains and if it weren't for these early "designers", we would not have graphic design today.