At the beginning of this lecture, we discussed the how the Gutenberg revolutionised the spreading of information and the affordability of books. In the year of 1456 alone the press printed 180 bibles. This further in turn, allowed for literacy rates to increase, due to this mass production books.
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Unlike what most people believe, Gutenberg was not the first person to create press dtyle printing. The Chinese used a wooden characters in the same way 600 years earlier, with the oldest intact book being found originating 868 AD. This method was less successful as the wooden casts would wear out easily, unlike Gutenberg’s later metal type.
Alois Senefelder invented lithography in 1796, this allowed for the recreation of images and artwork through the use of mid-tones. This added a shading effect that could not be achieved before with just black and white print. Although this was not considered graphic design as it was the mere recreation of an image.
Our lecturer mentioned a weird thought, that around this time there would be no images when you are walking down the street. Most signage would be lettering.
The Work of Art and the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, written in 1934 has a discussion about why people don’t just look at an image of a place rather than go there. This brought up a discussion what is the difference between images and the real thing. The discussion led to what people though when visiting the Mona Lisa, which according to input from other students, wasn’t really worth it for the physical viewing, and more just as a feeling of seeing one of the worlds most famous paintings. In reality it was apparently much smaller and less colourful than the images online.
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