Chapter 3-4 History of GD Feb 11

Chapter 3:
Throughout the Asian culture, objects and ideas were being formed. Looking at the Chinese writing system, it is a visual language. The Chinese, having a completely different spoken language and written language, never broke syllables up. There were four major phases that China took throughout the evolution of calligraphy. These include chiaku-wen (bone-and-shell), chin-wen (bronze scripting), Hsiao chuan (small-seal), and chen-shu (regular style). After writing on bamboo and wooded strips throughout history, paper was invented in 105 A.D. with the help of Ts’ai Lun. Shortly after this invention, printing was also discovered in which examples of this include relief printing, chops, as well as inked rubbings. The first books created resembled scrolls until stitched books were developed.

As the Chinese language developed, the written and spoken language had no correlation with each other. It is hard to understand how a culture never broke down their language into syllables using cuneiform. To learn the total vocabulary of the Chinese involved knowing 44,000 characters. Only the professionals could memorize these characters over a long period of time. The language of China seemed very hard to learn and very different from the rest of the world.

Since the Chinese language was so different from the rest of the world, how did China translate with other cultures? How would one go about learning Chinese for translation purposes since the written and spoken languages are different?


Chapter 4:
Illuminated manuscripts began its journey around 1450 A.D. beginning in Europe. Manuscript production, being costly and time consuming, involved many different people to fulfill the jobs needed to create a manuscript. The earliest surviving illustrated manuscript comes from the classical style of developing manuscripts. New letter styles and uncials were developed at this time. After the classical style of manuscripts came, Celtic book design became popular. Different ornaments and frames were used to fill the whole page as well as decorative bindings were used. It was not until Charlemagne in 768 A.D. rose up to bring back the quality of the manuscripts and writing. At that time, illustrations were poorly drawn and text was almost impossible to read. Charlemagne standardized pages layouts and writing styles to create a uniform look. The Caroline minuscule was created and is the predecessor of our current lowercase alphabet. Spanish manuscripts displayed intense colors and intricate geometric designs. When it came to Gothic manuscripts, textura was the dominant Gothic lettering. It had unique strokes and serifs that contained no rounded edges. But, when Islamic manuscripts began to emerge, figurative illustrations were forbidden due to religious beliefs. Some of the most important people in this time period include the Limbourg brothers, who with their education and skill, they created an illustrated calendar as well as handmade books.

One thing that I find interesting when reading this chapter is fact that Celtic manuscripts contain spelling errors and misreading. You would think that if a beautiful manuscript was put together, everything would be perfect down to the last letter. The imagery on these Celtic manuscripts are elegant and the text is unique as well. So would it be the scribes fault for the spelling errors? I feel that the scribes who were hired to write in these manuscript layouts would be skilled enough to know how to spell words.

One question that I pose is how did the black plague affect what the scribes and designers wrote about. Chosen imagery comes from the bible, poetry and other sources. You do not see many manuscripts about the black plague or even manuscripts with poetry in them about it. How did this plague affect them at the time?

Feb 9 History of GD response

In the class discussion today, we looked at why writing was significant as well as the benefits of an alphabet. The importance and benefits of writing was that they were able to write out laws, taxes, and keep records from history. Also, it was used in trade and better communication, as well as turned into books which helped people advance as a culture over time. The benefits of an alphabet are that it is easier to teach to a group of people and it will be easier to translate from language to language.

One thing that I take away from class is the fact that writing and language was power at this time period. The more people that could understand an alphabet and written language means less power over those who can not. I can understand why they wanted important people to be the ones who had these special talents and not everyone. Villages wanted to maintain order over their culture.

One question that I pose is how did the voting stamps work? Why did they have to use stamps to vote and what do the letters on the stamps mean?

Feb 8 History of GD Chapter 2

While the alphabet inventors are unknown, they sought to believe the source to be the Canaanites, Hebrews, and Phoenicians. This early alphabet was referred to as the North Semitic writing. Looking throughout history, it is assumed that the development of the alphabet was an act of geography and the mixture of visual symbols throughout villages. As time went on, different cultures and villages created their own alphabet. For example, Ras Shamra did not contain any vowels, while Aramaic used dots and dashes added to characters to indicate vowels. It was not until the Greek civilization that the alphabet was turned into beauty. Throughout the Greek culture, vowels were made, and changes like boustrophedon came into play. They eventually adopted the reading style of moving left-to-right. This alphabet played a role in democracy. When the Romans eventually captured Greece literature and art, they developed their own alphabet using serifs. Their cities were decorated with beautiful characters and other styles of writing that were shown in monuments and statues.

One thing that I find interesting when looking throughout Rome is how the characters on statues and monuments are created with perfection. There are very subtle differences within a repeated character on these statues. The perfection that these artists use is amazing when you consider the tools they had in that time period. They took a lot of pride in their beauty and worked on always improving it throughout the city.

One question that I pose is how do we know that alphabets and writing did not evolve at an earlier date in history? They stated in the reading that only 30,000 scrolls survive. How do we know that the earliest forms of writing did not occur on a medium that did not survive throughout the years?

This is a advertisement for Burger King. The function that is serves is to give $2 off a $10 purchase of food at any Burger King restaurant. The point they try to make with this advertisement is that you have to pay roughly $2 to go through a toll on the highway, so why not give that $2 back to you when you go to Burger King.

This advertisement was found online at the Burger King's Greatest Ad's site. Looking at the typography used in this advertisement, I feel like it is a good balance. Since the picture is so bold, the designers did a good job at making sure the text does not overtake the picture. The imagery here represents more than just fries on a sign. You can clearly see that the fries are in the shape of a hand flicking someone off. The quality of the artwork is clear and understandable, as well as simple. The designers do a great job at making you feel like you are experiencing the same thing that they are: high pricing for tolls. If you looked at the picture and saw the bold words "Toll This" you really would not understand what the advertisement is about. It is a bold statement once you read the paragraph below and understand what purpose they have for this advertisement. The typography they used in this advertisement was bold, yet not overpowering.

Feb 7 History of GD Class Response

Our discussion from Friday's class was based on the chapter 1 reading. We discussed that the earliest forms of communication was not intended for artwork. One exercise that we did during class was that we had to think of as many different ways to visually show a "man" and a "woman". We were told to think of bathroom signs to help us show different ways to visually show these. Coming up with ideas were easy, but there were some that represented ideographs instead of pictographs. We continued in class talking about Hammurabi and the different laws that were put up around the village. They were trying to establish order by setting these rules up. One other thing we discussed is the Rosetta Stone. It is amazing that this stone was the only way to translate from the three different languages.

One thing that I found very interesting in class today was the Hammurabi. These rules were placed around a village to help keep order. Some of these rules were extreme. For example, some stated that if you build a house and it caves in on a man, you will be killed. It is interesting to think of who thought up these rules and how they were implemented.

One question that I pose is how exactly ere these Hammurabi rules put into place? How did the village handle these new orders and respond to them? Were they rebellious or did they give in to social order?

Feb 6 - Chapter 1

Unknown where and when Homo sapiens emerged, there is reason to believe they have been around for over 200,000 years. Most likely originating from Africa, the earliest form of communication of humans began with pictographs, which were pictures or sketches representing things depicted. Petroglyphs, which were carved from rock, began showing up all around the world. As people would make these carvings from rock, they eventually would reduce these pictographs and petroglyphs almost to a point that would resemble letters. As human beings continued interacting with each other, they began illustrating these symbols into tablets made of rows and columns that would be read from one side to the other. As communication between humans became more sophisticated, they were able to write in cuneiform. Developing years after cuneiform, cylinder seals were created to mark personal objects or letters. As writing became more and more popular, papyrus was developed to write on. Through a tedious process, this paper was produced to create scrolls and manuscripts. Egyptians used the manuscripts to write prayers, funerary text, and other passages. As manuscripts became more common, scribes would design the manuscript, while artists would draw illustrations next to the writing.

One thing that was interesting involved the development of Mesopotamian proprietary marks and seals. They were used to mark property and ownership among the village. This was a visual breakthrough that allowed people to know who created pottery and who the cattle belonged to. As you continued reading about seals, you noticed that almost everyone had one, no matter your class status. If you look around today, everything is marked and has ownership. We know where everything came from and what company created it.

How long would it take to create a hieroglyphic? Looking at some of these engravings it appears it would take hours or even days to write out a message.

Feb 6th - History of Graphic Design

The topic that was discussed in class dealt with the earliest forms of communication, as well as graphic design. We explored cave drawings that aided in communication before there were words and vocabulary. We looked at paintings that were taken from France and tried to distinguish the meanings behind them.

One of the most meaningful things learned in class today is how hard it is to communicate without words and symbols. In this time period today, even if we do not use words for communication, we are still able to communicate through symbols, action, and even jargon. During class, we explored a form of communication that is not used in this time and age, but use to be the only form on communicating. Using clay to mold as well as to draw on is something that is frustrating and extremely hard to do. The hardest part of communicating with clay is the detail that you try to portray. For example, how do you tell someone you have 2 white cats and 2 black cats through using clay? Adding detail to communicating through clay is very difficult.

Question for class: How would cave men be able to convey emotion or specific feeling through a drawing? Was drawing their only way of communication or were there other forms they could also communicate through at the time?