Graphic Design
and
Print Production Fundamentals
Blog Post-03
Industrial Revolution Overview
The Craftsman
Prior to the Industrial Revolution (1760–1840 in Britain), the artisan was often the person who handled all aspects of manufacturing and handled the majority of design-related tasks. Every level of production included the tailor, bricklayer, cobbler, potter, brewer, and any other type of craftsman integrating their individual design style. Product creation. In print, this meant that the printer chose (and occasionally made) the paper, ran the press, and created the fonts, page sizes, and layout of the book or broadsheet. Design coherence was implied.
In this pre-industrial era, books
and broadsheets were the primary uses of typography. The predominant fonts used
in the industry were roman, black letter, italic, and grotesque, which were
based on historical western cultural traditions. Scale 6 typography was
inherently modest and only needed for sheets and pages; it only became huge
when it was carved into structures like buildings and monuments.
Technological Shift
By displacing a sizable portion of
the population from rural subsistence living to urban centers where
manufacturing anchored and dominated employment and income, the Industrial
Revolution fundamentally altered society's social and economic structure.
Aristocratic rule over the land and the employment of human labor to govern and
direct production were essential components of agrarian societies. Contrarily,
urban industry was dominated by the mechanical manufacturing of products,
managed and controlled by industrialists rather than the aristocracy, even if there
was still a great need for human labor (female and child labor in particular
was in tremendous demand). Steam was used to power the factories at first, then
later, gasoline and electricity. An engineering mentality that prioritized the
optimization of mechanical processes for high productivity dominated these new
manufacturing methods.
Design and Production Separate
For a variety of reasons, the design process was segregated from the production-based approach. The primary factor was the efficiency-oriented mindset of the manufacturers, who prioritized producing goods with high yields and cheap unit costs over aesthetically pleasing designs or premium materials. The design process takes time and was deemed superfluous for each stage of manufacturing manufactured items.
The working and middle classes were the target markets for manufactured goods; output of high quality was not desired. These goods were never meant to compete for the attention of the affluent, luring them away from the personalized services and goods of the craftsman (a modern example is Tip Top Tailors drawing consumers from Saville Row). Instead, they gave the common people access to products they had not previously been able to afford. This clever way of thinking produced the still-useful formula basic design with low material integrity = affordable items.
Design was introduced for form development and when a product needed additional appeal for the general public — typically towards the later stages of manufacturing through decorative additions — as opposed to being a part of each phase of production (implicit in the craftsman's approach). The requirements of the production process and its limitations now guided design.
Advertising Emerges
The enormous volumes and inexpensive costs of manufactured goods, notwithstanding their lax product standards, "fueled a mass market and even more demand" (Meggs & Purvis, 2011, p. 127). At this period, the historical function of graphic design for newspapers and publications was broadened to encompass advertising. To sell these manufactured goods to the mass market, each company and product needed publicity; no earlier means of promotion could reach as many individuals.
These were mostly unaffected by design philosophy or stylistic cohesiveness in terms of their aesthetic. Industrialists attempted to make their products look more upscale by using a pastiche of historical styles, but they did not go as far as to develop a new visual language. This was a sensible tactic that has subsequently been used again (consider early computer design aesthetics). In most cases, when a new media or communication strategy is invented (such as print advertising and the posters of the Industrial Revolution), it makes use of familiar visual and linguistic patterns while introducing a novel method of message delivery. Too much change alienates, yet novelty of delivery succeeds by putting a spin on something that is already well-known.
Font Explosion
Graphic design advanced with an
explosion of new typeface designs and new manufacturing techniques in addition
to its new function as a mass-market product promotion tool. The typefaces'
layout had previously been connected to the practical and cultural goals of
publishing books and broadsheets. Text had to do much more than just serve as a
phonetic sign when it came to large scale posters and several other print
components. The pioneering attitude of the era was contagious among printers
thanks to production innovations, and all goods and their potential were
reevaluated. This mindset naturally applied to font design, functionality, and
reproduction techniques.
Text became an essential component
of visual communication since it was frequently the only resource utilized to
promote its subject. Jobbing printers who employed lithographic or letterpress
presses pushed the limits of both, competed with one another by introducing
innovations, which in turn pushed designers and type foundries to provide more
goods they could use. Slab serif, often known as Egyptian, is a completely new
type of font. To satisfy consumer demand, thousands of new fonts were created.
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