What is Graphic Design?

William Addison Dwiggins

Some History:

The first person who called these two words out was William Addison Dwiggins in 1922, when he referred for himself as a ‘Graphic Designer’. Book design, lettering, typography (the visual component of the written word) and calligraphy (a beautiful handwriting) are included in his work he did.




The first ever design that was made was actually much more before William. It goes back to about 40,000 years ago. At this time Cave Paintings (known as rock art for today's time) were used as a way of visual communication at that time.

These Cave Paintings are divided into two categories:

• The Petroglyph; which basically are the engraving in the rock.
  They were made by removing the surface of the rock by craving/scratching, most probably with small pieces of rocks because at that time tools were limited.

Petroglyphs

• The Pictographs; which are paintings/drawings on the rock.
  They had to use natural things to provide the painting, such as hematite, limonite, charcoal, egg white, animal fat, blood, plant oil, fish oil and by mixing those up they could do a pictograph. 

Pictograph

As time passed the writing started to evolve in the Mesopotamian to keep record of the information mainly for religion and for trade. This was called cuneiform, which were specific marks done in wet clay with a reed implement, and done in a wedge-shaped style. The name cuneiform comes from the word 'cuneus' from the Latin language which means 'wedge'; referring to the style of writing cuneiform used. Another writing type as cuneiform is hieroglyph, but this is nothing apart a type which was developed by the Egyptians.

Cuneiform

By time the writing continued to evolve more than just cuneiform or hieroglyph; which consisted of some complicated signs that won’t be read if not trained. But these signs were decreased to thirty by the Egyptians and here the alphabetic system started to be used until the Greeks and Romans adopted this system to their way, basing their system on the square, circles and triangles, and over time they passed it slowly to all the nations of the Western World.

Alphabet

To write something on a paper wasn't a possible thing back in time because the paper as we know it today wasn't evolved, but they used a very similar thing to a paper. They used to use what is called a papyrus to write on it; it was a weed of about 10 feet high which grew wildly. They used this papyrus for almost do everything such as; blankets, medicines, clothes and much more daily used things.

Papyrus

To have the book as we know it today, posters etc.… it was a very important think that the printing had to start to evolve and thanks to Johannes Gutenberg the printing system was introduced and perfected in 1450s in Germany. The system Gutenberg perfected was already being used in china which basically was the block printing which is a picture that was craved into a wooden block, inked and after that transferred to the paper. Of course this was expensive to print a book and/or a paper with letters because each word was on a separate block, so thanks to the perfected system Gutenberg introduced, printing changed and was made easier to the people using it.

Johannes Gutenberg

Block Printing

Design is History, n.d, William Addison Dwiggins (online):- http://www.designishistory.com/1850/wa-dwiggins/ (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Geology, n.d, Petroglyphs (online):- http://geology.com/articles/petroglyphs.shtml (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Arkarcheology, April 9, 2007, How are Pictographs made (online):-http://arkarcheology.uark.edu/rockart/index.html?pageName=How%20are%20pictographs%20made? (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Ancient, April 28, 2011, Writing (online):- http://www.ancient.eu/writing/ (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Ancient, April 28, 2011, Cuneiform (online):- http://www.ancient.eu/cuneiform/ (Accessed 8th October 2015).

English, n.d, The Development of Alphabet (online):-http://www.english.imjnet.org.il/page_985 (Accessed 8th October 2015).

Egypt, n.d, Papyrus (online):- http://egypt.mrdonn.org/papyrus.html (Accessed 8th October 2015)

History Guide, April 13, 2012, Printing Press (online):-http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/press.html (Accessed 8th October 2015)