DESIGN JOURNAL 3

     IMAGINE is not only seven words but more than that if you could add additional forms, colors, ideas, shapes, tones and values to it. Endless combination comes from endless imagination.

Imagine. Florence Lee. Typography design

     Advancement and new design in typography made the alphabets easier to read and write, thus increase the accessibility to people as it can be written faster and shorten the production time. As a result of better visual communication, literary rate increased. For example, Vincent Figgins created letterforms without serifs called sans-serifs in 1832.

     Advancement and invention in photography greatly affects visual communication procedures. Photography is the process of making pictures using light. The first photograph was produced in 1826 by a French inventor Nicephore Niepce. This invention became demanding from the middle class during the Industrial Revolution because it made nice portraits in lower cost and shorter time when compared with oil painting. Therefore, the invention of photography made the visual communication easier, lower cost and shorter time.

     One of the advancement in printing is lithography. Alois Senefeler invented the technique of printing with stone plates at the end of the 18th century. Lithography is a printing process that uses chemical processes to create an image. It spread throughout the countries quickly and contributing a lot to the advertising world during the 19th century. This chemical process replacing the physical process helped the visual communication become faster, lower cost and easier.   

     Frederic Goudy was a type designer made more than a hundred typefaces famous for their strength and beauty. He taught himself printing and typography, then set up the Camelot Press in Chicago and sold his first typeface "Camelot" to a Boston printer for $10. After that, he started Village Press, and later taught at the Art Students League and New York University. He spent his whole life contributing to the type design and education.

     William Addison Dwiggins was one of the most influential and innovative designers in the early twentieth century in the areas such as calligraphy, type design, press printer, magazine and book design. He invent and applied new techniques to the traditional skills and created many beautiful arts that are still very popular nowadays.

     Bruce Rogers was typographer and book designer who influenced the fine book design in the United States during the early twentieth century. He designed the Montaigne typeface in 1901 and Centaur in 1915. He later travelled to England to serve as adviser to the Cambridge University Press, and then back to the United States to become adviser for Harvard University Press. He was also an adviser to Oxford University Press. He designed lots of outstanding books.

My thoughts 
     Before going deep into the graphic design history, I initially thought I will learn how the design composition rules are determined and who brought revolution to the design world and contributed to the design history. I do not relate typography to graphic design much because I always focus on evaluating the graphics of an artwork rather than its title or text. I think it is because most of my first impression from a design comes from its use of colors and photos, but never comes from the text. However, after reading the Meggs' History of Graphic Design, I am so surprised that the graphic design history is not something invented in the modern times but indeed dated back to the historical period from cave painting and then the advancement in printing and publishing helped uniform and spread the design ideas quickly throughout Europe and then to the whole world. This book used eight chapters to talk about the development of typography in our history. This completely changed my point of view and let me understand that we have to understand how types developed and spread in human society from ancient times to modern times, and how this development helped created the graphic design advancement. I believe one of the most important development in types that influenced the advancement of graphic design is the use of mathematical calculations in typography. For example, curve is actually a part of a circle, it has to be precise in order to create a uniform and neat feeling. Graphic design is different from art, it needs precise composition of the graphics so that it can attract attention and express the idea in an most effective way, while art can be free style and in any abstract form that people can be inspired by the art through their own imagination. So, learning the typography history really changed my point of view towards graphic design. I would definitely want to learn more!

Chinese calligraphy. Florence Lee

     Chinese words are always in square shape but you can always change it shape to any form and size as people can still recognize it from its features. So, once you caught its feature you can add unlimited variations to it.