Chapter 9:Graphic Design and the

Industrial Revolution

(1760-1840)

What were some of the effects upon society and culture as a result of the Industrial Revolution?

Innovations in Typography

Thomas Cotterell began the trend of sand casting large, bold display letters as early as 1765 when his specimen book included a typeface as high as the measure of twelve lines of pica about 2 inches. (display type)

Fat Faces

Robert Throne

• Student and successor of Cotterell,

• Innovated fat faces around 1803.

• Competed directly with Caslon IV and Figgins.

Vincent FigginsWhat are the characteristics of Slab Serif letterforms?

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Vincent Figgins

Egyptian Style

Comparison with Figgins’s design reveals subtle differences. Thorne based this lower case on the structure of modern style letters, but he radically modified the weight and serifs.

Egyptian Style(1821)

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In 1845 William Thorowgood and Company copyrighted a modified Egyptian called Clarendon. Similar to the Ionics, these letterforms were condensed Egyptians with stronger contrasts between thick and thin strokes and somewhat lighter serifs.

Clarendon in use today.

Vincent Figgins, one of Joseph Jackson’s apprentices, took charge of his operation after his death.

He later established his own type foundry and quickly built a respectable reputation for type design.

His 1815 printing specimens showed a full range of modern styles, antiques (Egyptians) – the second major innovation of nineteenth-century type design, and numerous other faces, including “three-dimensional” fonts. He dubbed his 1832 specimens sans serifs in recognition of the font’s most apparent feature, and the name is still in use today.

Tuscan-style letters

Characterized by serifs that are extended and curved, with a range of variations during the nineteenth century, often with bulges, cavities, and ornaments.

Words set in Tuscan letterforms create a very active figure/ground relationship.

San Serif Type

William Caslon IV, two-line English Egyptian, 1816

Vincent Figgins

The Wood-type Poster1828 debut

What was a problem facing printers in casting and printing

large size fonts?The practical reason many wood-type posters included mixed styles of fonts was the limited number of characters in each font.

The Wood-type Poster1828 debut

Handbill for an excursion train, 1876. To be bolder than bold, the compositor used heavier letterforms for the initial letter of important words. Oversized terminal letterforms combine with condensed and extended styles in the phrase Maryland Day!

Revolution in Printing

Lord Stanhope’s printing press:

—Similar to Guttenberg's press- but enabled larger size printing sheets

is engraved illustration depicts the printing press of all-iron parts invented in England by Charles, third Earl of Stanhope.

250 sheets/hour

Faster Printing Press1814 Steam Powered Cylinder Press Friedrich Koenig 1,100 sheets/hour

By 1824 presses could print 2,400 sheets/hour.

What important factor was necessary to enable the higher production capability of the printing press?

The Mechanization of Typography

Ottmar Mergenthaler demonstrates the Blower Linotype, the first line-casting keyboard typesetter, to editor Whitelaw Reid on 3 July 1886.

The Model 5 Linotype became the workhorse of typesetting, with keyboards and matrixes available in over a thousand languages.

The Victorian EraThe reign of Victoria (1819-1901) spanned two-thirds of the nineteenth century.

The Victorian era was a time of strong moral and religious beliefs, proper social conventions, and optimism.

The Victorians searched for a design spirit to express their epoch. Aesthetic confusion led to a number of often contradictory design approaches and philosophies mixed together in a scattered fashion.

The Industrial RevolutionThe Victorian Era

The title page for The Pencil of Nature, 1844. This design demonstrates the eclectic confusion of the Victorian era. Medieval letterforms, baroque plant designs, and Celtic interlaces are combined into a dense symmetrical design.

There is a new infusion of various cultures into a singular visual expression. Why is this?

The Victorian Era

A fondness for Gothic, which suited the pious Victorians, was fostered by the English architect A. W. N. Pugin, who designed the ornamental details of the British Houses of Parliament.

The first nineteenth century designer to articulate a philosophy, Pugin defined design as a moral act that achieved the status of art through the designer’s ideals and attitudes; he believed the integrity and character of a civilization were linked to its design.

Why would Victorians want to reach back in history for their design and architectural cues?

The Victorian Era

• “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.”

• This era was a time of strong moral and religious beliefs, proper social conventions, and optimism.

• Sentimentality, nostalgia, and an idea of beauty were expressed through the printed images of children, maidens, puppies and flowers.

• Traditional values of home, religion and patriotism were symbolized with sweetness and piety.

A. W. N. Pugin

This was the time period where a fondness for Gothic Design was displayed.

Pugin believed that the integrity and character of a civilization were linked to its design.

British Houses of Parliament

Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament 1856

Why has this book been called “the bible of Victorian Design?”

This catalog of design possibilities from Eastern and Western cultures, “savage”

tribes, and natural forms became the nineteenth-century

designer’s bible of ornament.

The Development of LithographyLithography was invented by Aloys Scenfelder 1796

What is the lithographic process?

What is color lithography?

Lithography

� First new printing technology since the invention of relief printing in the fifteenth century —invented by AloisSenefelder in Germany in 1798

� A mechanical planographic process in which the printing and non-printing areas of the plate are all at the same level—as opposed to intaglio and relief processes in which the design is cut into the printing block.

LithographyLithography is based on the chemical repellence of oil and water.

1. Designs are drawn or painted with greasy ink or crayons on specially prepared limestone.

2. The stone is moistened with water, which the stone accepts in areas not covered by the crayon.

3. An oily ink, applied with a roller, adheres only to the drawing and is repelled by the wet parts of the stone.

4. The print is then made by pressing paper against the inked drawing.

Lithography

� This planographic printing process, with its meticulous and convincing tonal drawing, achieved remarkable realism through subtle color, and suited the sentimentalism, nostalgia, and canon of idealized beauty that characterized the graphics of the Victorian era.

� Illustration, lettering, and decorative patterns could be combined into a unified design on the lithographic stone.

Applications� Applications of the medium to commercial uses included art

prints, posters, covers, book and magazine illustrations, advertisements, holiday cards, trade cards, and "scrap," album cards of wildflowers, butterflies, children, animals, and birds that were collected and assembled in scrap books.

� By the 1880s, the process was widely used for magazines and advertising. At the same time, however, photographic processes were being developed that would replace lithography by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Color LithographyIn 1846 Richard Hoe perfected the rotary lithographic press

Figure 9-51

John H. Bufford

Louis Prang

What were Louis Pran’scontribution to graphic design

in the Vitorian Era?

Figure 9-55

ChromolithographySince the time of medieval block books, applying color to printed images by hand had been a slow and costly process. German printers spearheaded color lithography, and the French printer Godefroy Engelmann patented a process named chromolithographie in 1837.

ChromolithographyColor separations

ChromolithographyColor separations

American chromolithography began in Boston, where several outstanding practitioners pioneered a school of lithographic naturalism. The achieved technical perfection and imagery of compelling realism.

Chromolithography

ChromolithographyThe original master drawing was precisely duplicated on a lithographic stone. Then, separate stones were prepared to print the flesh tones, red, yellow, blue, and the slate-gray background.

Browns, grays, and oranges were created when these five stones were overprinted in perfect registration. The color range of the original was separated into component parts, then reassembled in printing.

The Design Language of Chromolithography

What are the design characteristic of chromolithography?

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The Design Language of Chromolithography

Package designs chromolithographed on tin for food and tobacco products used bright flat colors, elaborate lettering, and iconic images to create an emblematic presence for the product.

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Images for Children – Walter Crane

He was the first artist who broke with the tradition of printed material for children.

Images for Children-Randolph Caldecott

His humorous drawing style became a prototype for children’s books and animated films.

Images for Children-Kate Greenway

How did Kate Greenway’s design influence Victorian society?

What Gestalt principles do you see illustrated in this layout?

Figure 9-68

The Rise of American Editorial and Advertising Design

Poster for Harper’s Magazine, 1883

The Rise of American Editorial and Advertising Design

Cover for Harper’s Weekly, 1864

The Rise of American Editorial and Advertising Design

Thomas Nast Harper’s Weekly

“Father of the American Political Cartoon”

The Rise of American Editorial and Advertising Design

Victorian Typography

As the Victorian era progressed, elaborate ornate typefaces came into fashion.

The passion for Victorian typefaces began to decline in the 1890’s, yielding to a revival of classical typography.

Victorian Typography

Victorian Typography

• The popular graphics of the Victorian Era came from the common attitudes and sensibilities of the period.

• Victorian design conventions could still be seen in the early decades of the twentieth century especially in commercial promotion.