2/25 After Class

In class, we discussed the Industrial Revolution, which covered topics including the steam engine, advertising, wood type, the steam press, photography and its influence.

We divided into groups to talk about how we’d describe the era’s style. The steam engine had an effect because it replaced many workers’ jobs; its increase in production led to the need in advertising. Fat faces, or display letterforms, were made; wood type allowed these to be cheap, much larger, and decorative. Sans-serif fonts like Caslon were introduced, images were put into type forms; and Mergenthaler’s linotype machine (1886) cut out the jobs of compositors and allowed work to be done 25-30% faster. The camera obscura was a drawing aid for artists, and this allowed for the invention of photography—in 1826, the first photograph of nature was taken. In 1844, the first fully photographic book was published, though the photos had to be carved into wood to print over and over. Kodak cameras were developed, and photographs of important historical events were able to be recorded (like the freeing of the slaves, interviews, and the Civil War). In 1880, half tones were invented to print photos into the New York Daily Graphic.

The most useful part of this chapter was to see how far graphic design has developed; and as we know it today (at least from the marketing/advertising perspective), it has not been around for much longer than 200 years, which means it has much more development to go through (as everything does).

I am interested in seeing how in the later chapter we see more and more technologies cropping up faster to change the way advertising is used—like the internet.