History of Visual Communications

1. Hieroglyphics

1.1. Influenced by...

1.1.1. Sumerian Cuneiform

1.2. Hieroglyphic is derived from two Greek words. Hiero meaning sacred and glyphic meaning writing.

1.3. Temples

1.3.1. The walls of the temples were decorated to show respect to their gods.

1.4. Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, and his army invaded Egypt in 1798. They discovered the Rosetta Stone.

1.4.1. The Rosetta Stone. A large stone with three different languages written on it. Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Greek

2. Cave Paintings

3. The Codex

4. The Printing Press

4.1. Gutenberg Press

4.2. Caxton

4.3. Lord Stanhope

5. Cuneiform

5.1. The Sumerians

5.1.1. 1. They were a theocratic culture 2. They were skilled artisans 3. Music was an important part of their life

5.2. Cuneiform was created to keep track of the many business transactions.

5.3. They wrote on clay tablets and used wedge shaped stylus’ made from reeds to form impressions into the wet clay which later hardened.

6. Phonetic Alphabet

6.1. The Phoenician alphabet was based on the principle that one sign represents one spoken sound.

6.2. It was a simple language in which all the letters began with consonants. Due to it's simplicity it disintergareted the class division.

7. The Greek and Roman Alphabet

7.1. The Greek alphabet is considered the world’s first true alphabet. It also gave birth to many other languages like Latin.

7.2. The Roman alphabet, also known as the Latin alphabet, has contributed a lot to type design with things like the serif, baseline, and descender.

8. The Linotype Machine