Brief Graphic Design tools: Gutenberg’s Type Molds to Apple’s PC and GUI

Brief Graphic Design tools: Gutenberg’s Type Molds to Apple’s PC and GUI

The chapters we reviewed this week were interesting and as I read each one I thought about how Johann Gutenberg’s revolutionary print process is similar to the magnitude of change delivered by the PC  - personal computer – and in an even faster revolution the smartphone, a blend of the PC and the telephone and radio.

First an emerging literate class and continued educational systems, such as universities, increased the demand for books, as with the increased demand, wealthy nobles and town leaders funded the development of printers and illustrators. In the beginning of the fifteen century clergy and the Church had primary control of the book making process via educated scribes and illustrators producing books, were one book took a few month and was extremely expensive. The end of the fifteen century saw the beginning of a new European educated class due to broader production of books throughout Europe as many German and Italian printers traveled across Europe.

The development of the people’s computer by Apple was significant, but the GUI that came from it’s design was most important aspect. The Graphical User Interface or GUI has made computing a visual process for the layman or non-geek user. Prior to Apple, computers were dumb terminals linked to a central computer. The general populace’s ability to compute at home or work and communicate via publishing with type sets and images led to further start-ups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. The other tool brought to market by Apple that was able to use the Apple PC was the image printer, able to reproduce the varied fonts provided within Apple’s GUI and system.

I think the Apple GUI is similar to the moveable type mold in its importance to the development of communication and literary and educational development of the populace.

When Johann Gutenberg completed his development of the type mold, the moveable typography and the refinement of letter forms changed dramatically. The breakdown of woodblock letters from a block of letters to individual letters that could be arranged into words or sentences and paragraphs via type molds led to improved print production. The letters on the block improved by metallurgical process of punch stamping letters from an engraved steel rod and into a soft metal like cooper or brass. These stamped letters were designed to be legible and not like the calligraphy with scrolling letters used in manually produced books. Type molds allowed the design of printed forms on paper to be uniform, clean and improved efficiency and production speed of printers. 

Part 1 The Prologue of Graphic Design

What an interesting beginning to our area of study. The Part 1: Prologue to Graphic Design covered the visual message and techniques employed by man over time from the invention of writing and use of alphabets to streamline sounds into text. The Asian contribution utilized pictographs and artful written forms such as calligraphy, culminating in presenting the artful development of illuminated manuscripts which I believe where meant to transcend communication and deliver to its owner societal status. These chapters were all fascinating, and as I read through the chapter I thought how our need to communicate and the content or message has not changed very much over time, only the mode and method utilized.

Technical processes of communication have changed over the thousands of years since man and woman emerged from caves and created cities-states and the more structured civilizations that we have today. Today’s society has almost instantaneous communication between neighbors, citizens, governments, and countries as the likes of scanners and bar codes, social media, television, and the internet. The use of technological advancements to solve the same issue of exchanging information rather its business information, tax records, literary or history, or simply communicating with one’s loved ones. These are basic ties to our past.  Just as the use of reeds and brushes replaced sticks and paper replaced the use of clay tablets, the method of human communication has changed over the millenniums and will continue in the foreseeable future. A futurist may say the past is the best predictor of the future. We will need to continue to communicate with forms, symbols of sounds or thoughts or processes until such time some form of telepathy is used.  

In the past humans in many lands and cultures communicated to manage their society and improve their lifestyles. As with the invention of any tool, the creation of drawings and writing methods was born from the need to present one’s thoughts or ideas. Organized groups and varied civilizations created many forms and methods to communicate such as hieroglyphs, pictures that represented sounds, markings and alphabets to achieve their communications goals. 

In Megg’s Chapter One ¹, the reference to the counting of goats and sheep in picture 1.6 was interesting. I could see myself creating one of these clay tablets as I work in the accounting profession. The caption read “Archaic table fragment from the late fourth millennium BCE. The frilled hole denotes a number, and the pictographs represent animals in this transcription of sheep and goats”.

As societies and civilizations grew either organically or through expand trade and war, the need to expand on aspects that were present in society, such as commerce and taxes, lead to the creation of alphabets.  Alphabets were created in different forms to meet the needs of society. Initially a picture or jab of a reed in clay or on a parchment led to refinements that led to more simplistic written from.

I watch the crowd at Oracle all cheering on the GS Warriors. Most spectators are wearing yellow tees that communicate their support and emotional state of inclusion – the t-shirt has written on it “Strength in Numbers”. I imagine some Babylonian or Greek wearing a robe to a horse or wrestling event that indicates their support for a favorite. Another example I found in Megg’s Chapter 2 ² was about the discovery of writing on walls in Pompeii. The discovery was akin to modern day signage and graffiti. The archeologist discovered literary writings and crude obscenities.  The caption for the picture 2-20, it read “Wall writing from Pompeii, first century CE. Over sixteen hundred messages ranging from passages from Vergil to crude obscenities were preserved under more than 3.6 meters (12 feet) of volcanic ash.” I found interesting in this caption that the use of “billboards or wall painting”  were used, likely by professional, as well as the “tagger” or graffiti artist penning his art. Again the message unchanged, just the mode or process.

I think as we proceed through the course we will see many similarities between the content of human communication over time. The difference will be stylistic or in methodology or process, and the tools will be different such as digital computer or telecommunication-oriented like a smartphone and app.

 1. Phillip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis, Megg’s History of Graphic Design, 5^th Ed. (New Jersey: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2012), Chapter 01, The Invention of Writing, pg. 8.

2. Phillip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis, Megg’s History of Graphic Design, 5^th Ed. (New Jersey: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2012), Chapter 02, Alphabets, pg, 30.

Question: what I will learn and how will I apply it?

After reading the preface to Megg’s History of Graphic Design ¹ and perusing the book’s photos and reading the captions I came to realize what this course may offer me.

I hope that this course offers me more insight in to how to communicate better with my community and my management and peers at work, for example as when I assist in the design of business information reports. My work involves the concept of “Big Data” (large quantity of data that may or may not be related) and how to communicate this information more effectively and to make it meaningful to our clients. So I ask myself – how may an understanding of the history of communication and the evolution and need for graphic design help me?

I have always been interested in history and culture. I have studied Chinese, Spanish, Russian and English languages primarily. The photographs of hieroglyphs, old manuscripts and books, scrolls to billboards signage, and posters indicate that we all need to communicate our thoughts – I think the need to express one’s self is at the foundation of graphic design. How we humans have achieved the fulfillment our need to communicate is found within the technical aspects of pictures, symbols, and writing, and what these ultimately mean to civilization.

As I progress though the course I look forward to learning more about the communications evolution, and drawing conclusions on this topic that will assist me in my future endeavors.

1. Phillip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis, Megg’s History of Graphic Design, 5^th Ed. (New Jersey: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2012).