Graphic design
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
Graphic design is the process of communicating visually using text and images to present information. Graphic design practice embraces a range of cognitive skills, aesthetics and crafts, including typography, visual arts and page layout. Like other forms of design, graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated.
Contents |
The Start of Industrial Design
In late 19th century Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, the movement began to separate graphic design from fine art. Piet Mondrian is known as the father of graphic design. He was a fine artist, but his use of grids inspired the modern grid system used today in advertising, print and web layout.
In 1849, Henry Cole became on of the major forces in design education in Great Britain, informing the government of the important of design in his Journal of Design and Manufactures. He organized the Great Exhibition as a celebration of modern industrial technology and Victorian design.
From 1892 to 1896 William Morris' Kelmscott Press published books that are some of the most significant of the graphic design products of the Arts and Crafts movement, and made a very lucrative business of creating books of great stylistic refinement and selling them to the wealthy for a premium. Morris proved that a market existed for works of graphic design in their own right and helped pioneer the separation of design from production and from fine art. The work of the Kelmscott Press is characterized by its obsession with historical styles. This historicism was, however, important as it amounted to the first significant reaction to the stale state of nineteenth-century graphic design. Morris' work, along with the rest of the Private Press movement, directly influenced Art Nouveau and is indirectly responsible for developments in early twentieth century graphic design in general.
See also
Related disciplines
Related topics