19th Century Graphic Design (Week 3)

The objects of his inspection are, for the most part, at the intersection of technology, commerce and culture. More than 300 years after the invention of printing, the 19th century was an era of design enlightenment. The commercial art and craft of graphic and typographic activity was

prodigiously practiced by trained artisans who drew their inspiration from many of the same sources. Printers and type foundries published scores of elaborate sample books — some so ornate they resembled family Bibles, others stuffed like scrapbooks with samples hot off the presses.

Contemporary artists and designers sometimes think this material is merely quaint, or else they turn up their noses altogether at this decorative stuff, but a simple scan of Jury’s reproductions shows that the men (and the few women) who worked in this field knew exactly what they were doing. This is not naïve art. What they knew how to do was decidedly more difficult than using layout, font and drawing programs on today’s computers. The high level of sophistication can be seen in specimens like an excessively decorated ad for a 12-color press (“Golding’s Chromatic Jobber,” circa 1886) that demanded a lot of patience as well as aptitude to achieve the final result. And the eccentric typography on the cover of a specimen book by Thomas Hailing elegantly employs a quirky ornate typeface that prefigures everything from psyche­deliato today’s comics.

Pictographs (Week 1)

    

      A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and also an 'icon', is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to a considerable extent pictorial in appearance.

          Pictography is a form of writing which uses representational, pictorial drawings, similarly to cuneiform and, to some extent,hieroglyphic writing, which also uses drawings as phonetic letters or determinative rhymes. In certain modern use, pictograms participants to a formal language (e.g. Hazards pictograms).

Icon (Week 1)

          An icon (from Greek εἰκών eikōn "image") is generally a flat panel painting depicting Jesus, Mary, saints and angels, which is venerated among Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and in certain Eastern Catholic Churches.

          Icons may also be cast in metal, carved in stone, embroidered on cloth, painted on wood, done in mosaic or fresco work, printed on paper or metal, etc. Icons are often illuminated with a candle or jar of oil with a wick. (Beeswax for candles and olive oil for oil lamps are preferred because they burn very cleanly, although other materials are sometimes used.) The illumination of religious images with lamps or candles is an ancient practice pre-dating Christianity.

          Although common in translated works from Greek or Russian, in English iconography does not mean icon painting, and "iconographer" does not mean an artist of icons, which are painted or carved, not "written", as they are in those languages.

          Comparable images from Western Christianity are generally not described as "icons", although "iconic" may be used to describe a static style of devotional image.

Symbols (Week 1)

         
 A symbol is an object that represents, stands for, or suggests an idea, visual image, belief, action, or material entity. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, or visual images and are used to convey ideas and beliefs. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". 

          On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite.Numeralsnumbers. Alphabetic letters are symbols for sounds. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose symbolizes love and compassion.

 are symbols for 

Hieroglyph

          A hieroglyph (Greek for "sacred writing") is a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". 

          

          In Neoplatonism, especially during the Renaissance, a "hieroglyph" was an artistic 

representation of an esoteric idea, which Neoplatonists believed actual Egyptian hieroglyphs to be. The word hieroglyphics may refer to a hieroglyphic script.