"Designers Touch Everything"

Interesting points that caught my attention in class was the birth of Mass Communication. Beginning in the 1700's communication seemed to be more about art form more than news itself. Fat face and style type introduced themes to design, creating an atmospheric mood with just letter forms themselves. The boxy type style of fonts, San Serifs, were introduced by William Calson in England, 1816. Larger scale lettering became overly competitive for visual impact. In the 1800's the first photograph was printed in media using emulations. The Victorian period brought about the dawn of the Art of Persuasion. A major key element in this lecture was chromolithography, which was a technique to massively produce print in color. This brought about product packaging. Something that interested me the most was the creator of seasonal greeting cards, Louis Prang.

It seems that everything in this lecture leaded to the birth of everything that I know well today. Even though I believe that greeting cards have become somewhat unnecessarily abundant, you can find thousands of designs on store shelves today. It amazes me how long something continues to have an impact on society today. I'm sure the Harper Brothers, who created the first people magazine, had information that was actually useful to the people instead of some of the celebrity gossip where the front cover bears two different stories and the magazines sit on the same self. The lecture today still helped me understand a great deal of where the 'original' ideas came from and helped me appreciate the brilliant ideas that brought us to become the designers we are today.