History of Visual Communications

1. Cuneiform and the Sumerians

1.1. Sumerians

1.2. DEFINITON: skilled artisans who created vases bowls and other types of pottery

1.3. Writings: Clay tablets

1.4. Cuneiform began as a series of.... Pictograms & logograms

1.4.1. Cuneiform was created to keep track of the business transactions

1.5. 3 things we know about Sumerians

1.5.1. skilled artisans

1.5.2. theocratic culture rules by a priest king

1.5.3. music seemed to be an important part of their life

1.6. The Sumerians choose the Sumer region to settle because of the fertile soil

1.7. Cuneiform

2. Phonetic Alphabet

2.1. some scholars believed it to be a direct variation of hieroglyphics; other hypothesized ties with cuneiform or an independent creation

2.2. DEFINITION: an alphabet of characters intended to represent specific sounds of speech

2.2.1. all of the letters started with constants

2.3. Long Term Effects: it was so simple it could be used in multiple languages, it also allowed the common people to learn how to write.

2.4. serifs contributed to the Phonetic Alphabet by adding hooks to the end of letters to make them more legible

3. The Codex and the Illuminated Manuscript

3.1. The way Scrolls were constructed

3.1.1. 1. a long conlinuous piece of papyrus 2. separate sheets glued together at the edges

3.2. The way they were rolled up

3.2.1. 1. some were simply rolled up 2. other had wooden rollers at each end

3.3. Romans started to change the way the normal handwriting style was by adding uppercase and lowercase letters along with punctuation

3.4. after a while, then codex and parchment came along and change the style of "book"

3.4.1. the codex was covered and bounded collection of hand written pages

3.4.2. Parchment was becoming more popular because it was stronger then papyrus

4. Linotype Machine

4.1. This machine consist of 3 different color keys

4.1.1. BLUE: was for punctuation and digits, and small capital letters and fixed spaces

4.1.2. BLACK: theses color keys were only used for lower case letters

4.1.3. WHITE: this color key(s) were used only for upper case letters

4.2. the first linotype machine was installed in New York tribune in july in the year 1886

4.3. the type writer and linotype machine were invented to transcribe notes and legal briefs and to make multiple copies

4.4. the name linotype comes from the way the you have an entire line of metal type

5. Photography

5.1. Joseph Niepce had the first successful photograph

5.2. James Clarke Maxwell made the first color printer

5.3. The first camera let out to the general public was the Brownie, which sold for $1.

5.3.1. the Brownie was a small brown box that you could take one picture with, which a lens in the front o capture the picture

5.4. Richard Maddox made the first successful dry process.

5.4.1. this was a glass plate that had gelatin on it instead of collodion , which they used for the wet process

5.5. Camera Obscura

5.5.1. This is a dark chamber; optical device that projects an image of its surroundings onto a screen. this was used to project light.

5.5.2. in the 17th and 18th centuries the Camera Obscura was down sized to a portable box.

6. The Computer

6.1. Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper designed the series of computers

6.2. IBM

6.2.1. International Business Machines

6.3. The mouse was a pointer tool so that you didn't have to the keys on the keyboard to control what you saw on the screen.

6.4. computer were first made for the navy for gunnery and ballistic calculations.

6.5. IBM came out with there first computer

7. 30,000 yrs ago_CAVE PAINTINGS:

7.1. DEFINITION- detailed and colorful representations found on the inside of cave walls and ceilings.

7.2. Lascaux

7.2.1. Dates

7.3. 3 Reasons why they were created?

7.3.1. story telling

7.3.2. religous/superstition

7.3.3. intruction

7.4. Common Themes

7.4.1. large animals:

7.4.1.1. bison

7.4.1.1.1. horses

7.4.1.2. horses

7.4.1.3. deer

7.4.1.4. human hand tracings

7.5. most famous cave painting site is in Paris Lascaux

7.6. cave painting:

7.7. Oldest known cave site is in Chauvet Pont d'arc

8. Hieroglyphics and the Egyptians

8.1. DEFINITION: a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements

8.2. Hieroglyphics was influenced by the concept of expressing words in writing from the samaritans

8.3. This was a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements

8.4. 3 things on the Rosetta stone

8.4.1. Egyptian Hieroglyphics

8.4.2. Demotic

8.4.3. Greek

8.5. Egyptians

8.5.1. Hieroglphics

8.6. Scribes were people who could read and write instructions on the wall and papyrus for rituals

8.7. Rosetta Stone

8.7.1. Jean Francois Champollin deciphered the hieroglyphics on the stone

8.7.2. Been in the British museum since 1802

8.7.3. the breakthrough for the stone was matching up the symbols with the greek name of egyptian Pharaoh Ramses

9. Gutenberg Presss

9.1. Movable type

9.1.1. metal letters that could be rearranged to create new words instead of wood type which had to be replaced

9.2. the worlds first movable type was in China

9.3. they used movable type because it didn't split over time like wood would with the ink and the metal plates lasted a long time and could be used more then once for longer periods of time

9.4. the first book to printed was a 2 volume Bible that sold for 300 florins each

9.5. the first american news letter was the Boston newsletter written by John Campbell

9.6. the 4 types of printing processes still used today are:

9.6.1. 1. relief 2. intaglio 3. porous 4.lithography

10. Elements of Design

10.1. to create good graphic design it requires an understanding of the elements and principles of design.

10.1.1. ELEMENT: Components or parts which can be isolated in a visual design or work of art

10.1.2. PRINCIPLES: Tells us how we should organize those elements on a page or screen

10.2. 6 different types of design:

10.2.1. 1. Line 2. Shape or form 3. Space 4. texture 5. value 6. color

10.3. There are many different kinds of line, and they all give off a certain feeling.

10.4. You can have a 2D and 3D picture or shape

10.4.1. 3D has depth, width, and height

10.4.2. 2D had width and height

10.5. you can have a negative and positive space

10.5.1. Negative Space: refers to the shapes around and between those objects and elements

10.5.2. Positive Space: refers to the object and elements used in a design