Gutenberg was extremely influential in design history because he introduced mechanical movable type printing. His invention was clearly monumental because without the ability to print to the masses, I don’t think there would be much growth of knowledge. His movable type printing introduced sort of a mass communication era which I’m sure changed the way things were forever. Just think if we never were able to pick up book and read. I don’t think we would have schools and education. The world would be so small.  Shortly after his invention, more printing shops opened up (throughout Europe) and it started to become somewhat of a domino effect. Eventually more and more people were able to participate in important political, cultural issues, which led to dramatic changes in society we once knew.

The letterpress printing activity was interesting. The room was quite crowded and I felt somewhat rushed because everyone needed to get their printing done. The metal letterpress type had some weight to them, which was very interesting. I chose to print ‘Jeremy Eads, Graphic Designer’ because I thought it would be an interesting addition to my portfolio. With that particular type, you have to put clay around the letters to hold them into place. After they were printed, they were someone mis-aligned which is fine. I would like to experiment with the wooden block letters as well. I would love to spend some time alone concocting different words and type with inks without the rush. I think I could create some interesting pieces.

So for this weeks class, we had to develop a language. We got into a group and the first thing I said was “I’m hungry, let’s do it about food”. Sarah said, okay let’s do it. I really wasn’t sure at first but as we developed it, it turned out really interesting. Towards the end, we came up with the emotion symbols. With the emotion language, it enables communicating the feeling associated with the food. ie: hungry = normal hunger pains, hangry = hungry/angry, non-hangry, and full/too full. As a group, we took turns drawing our favorite foods. All of these drawings are symbol based. We tried to simplify each symbol so they were representing the food so we understand it but still in the caveman style. I would say the only challenging thing was the coming up with which foods to develop. The easiest way to quickly come up with them, we thought of our favorite foods, but we each spent at least 30 seconds before we sketched it. As we sketched, we helped each other in keeping the simplicity of the symbols without adding too much. As we were developing these, I thought they would be nice vectorized in Adobe Illustrator. It would be interesting to see this as a typeface.

The Hangry Alphabet

Cave paintings were significant because it was the origin of graphic design. They presented clear evidence of conscious decisions about form. These forms played a significant role on the representation of ideas, rather than their needs.

All this information about forms, figure/ground and high levels of craft are all the basic fundamentals of two dimensional art. Without these cave paintings, how were we able to convey our messages? These images helped carry crucial information. They served intellectual purpose. Graphic design wouldn’t be where it is today, if it wasn’t for these marks during the stone age.

Mark-making, just like a mark or logo, this is the most basic graphic expression and design. It’s a sign of individuality. So, for today, an example of mark-making could be like the Pepsi logo. Cavemen founded these principles and applied it to their current culture and we still do that to this day.

If I was an early human, I would want to leave behind imagery of my culture. Images of survival, hunting, gathering and values that are important to me. I believe the messages that were left behind by the cavemen were indeed important in their time. It was an important step for the next century of humans to follow and build from.