History Of Graphic Design
Posted on September 29th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Posted in pictograms, writing system
A “pictogram” or “pictograph” is a symbol used to represent an object, a place, an event or a concept with an illustration. It’s basically a form of writing in which ideas are transmitted through drawing. It is the basis of cuneiform writing which uses drawings as phonetic letters. An ideogram is a symbol which represents an idea. Pictograms were used by the ancient Chinese as early as 5000 BC. They predated the famous Sumerian cuneiforms in Mesopotamia. They were used to label basic farm produce as early as 9000 BC and with the rise of cities and spread of basic craftmanship they were used to label manufactured goods around 6000 BC. Amazingly pictograms are still in use as the main medium of written communication in some non-literate cultures in Africa, The Americas and Oceania. Below is an excellent example of some ancient pictograms.
Most of the letters of the Roman alphabet have their origins in pictograms. For example, the letter A represented the head of an ox, and if you turn it upside down, a bovine head with horns can be seen. Although written Chinese is often thought to consist of pictograms, less than 4% of all the characters ever created have a direct origin in pictograms.
Pictograms can often transcend cultures and countries because they can communicate to speakers of a many different languages. Road signs and other pictographic material (toilet, airport, train signs) are often adapted as global standards because they can be easily understood by all. There is also a standard set of pictograms used for laundry symbols and chemical hazard labels. Above you will see a great pictogram from an Australia zoo warning against swimming because of the threat of crocodiles.
Sources: answers.com, wikipedia
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Posted on September 26th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Posted in languages
Etymology is the study of the history of words: when they entered a language, where they came from, how their form and meanings have changed over time. It recognizes and explains how words originate through a limited number of basic mechanisms: borrowing from other languages, derivation, compounding, onomatopoeia and sound symbolism (imitative words such as “click”). Etymologists apply a number of methods to study the origins of words, including: philological research (the study of how words change over time in cultures), dialectological data (how words change from one dialect to another), comparative methods (comparing related languages for common ancestor roots) and semantic change (comparing how words change in many different languages).
There is an excellent “online etymology dictionary” that will allow you to search for the history of a particular word. Another very interesting site is Behind The Name which has the etymology and history of first names.
Sources: wikipedia
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Posted on September 25th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Posted in alphabets
On Beyond Zebra is a classic illustrator children’s book by Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. It was first published in 1955 by Random House Books. In typical Dr. Seuss fashion our narrator recounts the story of his young friend, Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell, who has just learned his alphabet. Like all young learners, Conrad is taught that the alphabet ends at Z. He is amazed when the narrator presents him with more letters that come after Z.
Each of the letters that Geisel introduces in the book are used to spell the name of an exotic creature. Additionally, they are all monograms, meaning they basically combine one or more other letters. For instance, the first letter introduced is “YUZZ.” It’s the letter used to spell Yuzz-a-ma-Tuzz, a wild looking Dr. Seuss animal creation. The “YUZZ” letter looks like a weird combination of Y and Z. The “WUM” (for Wumbus) is a combination of a W and an M.
Apart from the simple whimsicalness of the book, Geisel presents us with a far deeper message. As his narrator says at the beginning, “You can stop, if you want, with the Z, Because most people stop with the Z, But not me!” Geisel is encouraging us all, both young and old, to go beyond the boundaries set for us by conventional society. Learning is a never ending process that requires constant effort and wide exploration. By using something like the alphabet, which clearly has a beginning and and end, and inventing more letters he challenges us to look beyond what we think we know. It is, of course, a great message. Many, many things have been discovered and/or invented after all of us were told quite simply that it couldn’t be done. By pushing past limits and boundaries of what we think we know, what we think we can do, what we think we understand, we can take ourselves (and possibly society) to new places. The story is a parable to remind us just how much we don’t know (even when we think we know all there is to know about something) and just how much more there is out there for us to discover.
There is actually an “unofficial” Unicode Seussain Latin Extension (U+E630 – U+E64F) for the letters which Geisel invented!
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Posted on September 24th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Posted in writing system
Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. It was created by the Sumerians in about 3000 BC (over five thousand years ago!). It originally began as a system of pictographs, similar to, but more abstract than the Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was in use for almost 3,000 years. The last known cuneiform inscription was written in 75 AD.
Cuneiforms were usually written on clay tablets using a blunt reed for a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus had a “wedge” shape, which is where the name cuneiform comes from (the Latin word cuneus means wedge and the latin word forma means shape). The first images were drawn in vertical columns. Later people began to write in horizontal rows
Certain symbols were used to indicate the names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc. Individual words were represented by crude pictorial symbols that resembled in the some way the object being represented. However, as time passed and the script developed, many of the original pictographs began to lose their original function and a given sign could have various meanings depending upon the context. The number of symbols also began to be reduced as the writing became more phonological. Over time the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract. The writing system underwent many changes. Images were often rotated and simplified many times. Eventually the system developed into a syllabic alphabet.
There is a great website called Write Like A Babylonian where you can type in your name and initials and a monogram will be created in cuneiform. You can see the results for my name and initials on the left.
The Sumerians lived along the lower Tigris And Euphrates valley in what is now Iraq. The were the fist people to build cities and achieve what we refer to as “civilization.” They domesticated goats and cattle, they grew wheat and barley, they baked bread and brewed beer. They also built large temples and had kings. But their biggest contribute to the world was the development of written language via cuneiform script. Cuneiform was also adapted by the Akkadins, Babylonians and Assyrians to write their own languages.
Sources: wikipedia, Washington State University, Penn Museum
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Posted on September 22nd, 2008 at 8:40 am
Posted in fonts
A “serif” is a small decorative flourish at the ends of the strokes on a character in a font. Sans-serif means “without” the strokes (sans being the French word for without). Times New Roman is a very common serif font while Arial is a very common sans serif font.
It is generally considered that serif fonts are easier for the human eye to read because the serif makes the individual letters more distinctive and easier for our brains to recognize quickly and because the serifs help guide the eye along the lines in large blocks of text. Without the serif, our brain needs to spend longer identifying the letter, because the shape is less distinctive. Serif fonts are usually used for most printing (though sans-serif fonts are often used for headings and headlines). However, an exception is the use of type on computers. Because of the lower resolution of computer screens it can be much harder to read small serif characters on a computer. Therefore, it is recommended to use sans-serif fonts such as Verdana, Helvetica or Arial for small on-screen text. Here is an excellent review of the subject of serif vs sans-serif fonts an their usage on the web. The author studied over 50 empirical studies in typography and “found a definitive answer” to the question.
Before the term “sans-serif” became standard in English typography, a number of other terms, such as “gothic” were used. This can still be seen in the names of some typefaces such as Century Gothic. Other names included Egyptian, Antique, Grotesque and Doric. Serif types were originally referred to as Roman.
Sans-serif letter forms can be found in Latin, Etruscan and Greek inscriptions, as far back as the 5th century BC. However, sans-serif letters did not begin to appear in printed media until around 1800.
Serifs are thought to have originated in the Roman alphabet on words carved into stone. The most commonly accepted explanation is that the letter outlines were first brushed onto the stone with some type of paint and that the stone carvers simply followed the brush marks which flared at the ends and corners, thus creating the serifs. In 1968 Edward Catich published a book called The Origin Of The Serif which proposed this idea.
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