art, industry, & mass production | the late 19th century | industrialization & advertising | aesthetic movement & william morris

key terms:
crystal palace & the 1851 london exhibition
specimen books
sans-serif type
american wood type
william morris & kelmscott press

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• term "graphic design" not in wide use until after WWII

context:

-industrial revolution (initially in england)

 child labor, unhealthy conditions

 human & animal power until james watt perfects steam engine

 steam power = increase in productivity 

-seismic change in society

 radical, social, economic changes

• 1851: the great london exhibition (the world fair) in the crystal palace (created by joseph paxton) using ferroconcrete industrial materials (prefabricated architecture)

rise of:

advertising 

factory output 

reading matter 

separation of the design & the printing:

-printing process was laborious for printmaker but was slowly teased out to multiple people

-specimen book: typeface catalog in different sizes & widths

-industrial revolution introduces sans serif type, making it more modern & less calligraphic 

-difficult to keep up w casting letters 

 metal for casting letters can get cracks if made too quickly 

-period of increased demand for public posters & broad sheets

 needed bigger letters (for advertising) but larger metals crack --> 

-american wood type (darius wells)

 usually expensive & slow to carve out

 half the cost of metaltype & easy to smooth rough surfaces

 wells introduced basic innovation that made it easier to cut the type faster --> 

 mass manufacture wood types

• latter half of 19th century - american civil war --> need big posters 
• newspaper editions can come out more quickly bc of steam powered print presses 
• setting type by hand --> automatic type setting 

linotype machine (line of type) - ottmar mergenthaler (german immigrant)

-allowed you to press letters to create several lines of type at one time 

-allowed price of newspaper to plummet- greater distribution- more access

-book publication flourished, not just for upper classes

-illustrated periodicals in circulation --> more advertising 

-gave wider sector of society unprecedented access to weekly news

counter-tide to industrial revolution: aesthetic movement in england

-william morris- designer, utopian socialist, painter, etc.

 thinks everything is happening too quickly & quality is plummeting 

 advocated to return to hand craftsmanship

 against mass produced goods

 looked to revivalist, medieval, botanical sources

-created a craftsman firm/ team who honored craftsmanship & created furniture, textiles, etc.

 designs are costly --> falls into hands of elite

 workers should be closely aligned w crafts they produced

-kelmscott press (printing press): limited edition books that ran counter to tide of journals

 -creates his own fonts w medieval references

 -distribution was limited - not a viable answer to an industrial world

• steam powered printing press & machine manufactured paper
• lithographic printers: created plates (from readily available limestone) directly from artists' sketches

• chromo-lithography: had colors