Production for Visual Communicators

Key Developments in the production of graphic work

There are many milestones throught the history of the production of technology that have had a huge impact on how visual communicators today work.

In AD105, paper was invented in China by Ts'ai Lun, which I feel is one of the most important invention for graphic designers since it is basically the most frequently used material used in art.

In 1041 (again, in China), the first presses with clay movable type were created. This is an extremely important milestone for graphic designers because print is an extremely frequently used technique within the practice. Thise inventions made way for the development of print as a practice, which is still strongly used now.

One example of the sucessful path of development print had taken is wood engravings, a popular printing technique (although clay and linos are used more often more modernly), which was perfected by Thomas Bewick much later, in 1790.
Shortly afterwards, in 1796-9, Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder, which is a similar process. However, with this technique, the image is etched into an oily substance (i.e.wax) and applied to a plate of lithographic stone, which is then used to transfer ink to a blank sheet to create the print.

A hugely important milestone for Graphic Designers was the invention of photography; this medium gives graphic designers more options with materials and techniques. The first camera, the "camera obscura" (also known as the pinhole camera) was invented by J.N. Niepce in 1822, when he discovered how he could fix images through light and chemicals onto glass or metal plates. This invention opened up whole new worlds to graphic designers, as it was a completely new and interesting form of recording information.

The more well-known Negative/Positive photography was invented by Henry Fox-Talbot in 1839. This became even more beneficial towards graphic designers because images could be captured much more accuratley.

 Colour photography wasn't invented until 1861, by Clerk Maxwell. Being able to record colour in subjects now created new possibilities for graphic designers to be able to create new and innovative work. Many different photographic technology and techniques were invented afterwards, having even more impact on the way graphic dsigners think, such as digital photography.

In an age where we are so technologically advanced, technology is a huge part in most graphic designer's practices. Possibly the biggest milestone in modern day would be the creation of Adobe Illustrator (1987) and Adobe Photoshop (1990). This created a very wide variety of ways that graphic designers could alter images, in a way that would have literally been impossible beforehand.