Chronologies Print
“I have a ballad in print alive, for then we are sure they are true” - Shakespeare.
- If things were printed, you thought that it was true as it was down on paper.
- It is correct, it is factual.
- People read things and word of mouth changes what people were told - different "truths" based upon a subject.
Documentation. Communication. Reproduction
It is correct. It is factual.
One of the first examples of print was in 200AD - wood block printing in the far East. People were printing with charcoal so things weren't that permanent.
Fabric printing lasted - fabric was more sustainable than paper and could be folded up without damaging the print.
Europe didn't start printing until 1200AD.
The first book-esque item was created in China in 650AD - written on Buddhism and encouraging the charms and zen of the religion. A way to standardise the information. Religion attracts people as it is a sense of a community. Religion fuelled development of technology.
2000AD was when Japanese started to introduce colour.
Communication. Reproduction. Distribution
It is correct. It is factual.
Mass Communication
- The more you know, the more you don't know. We became curious of other things.
The first movable type was in Asia around 1000AD, but in Europe we created the Guggenheim press in 1450. This was around the time of Renaissance in Europe. The structure of the world was starting to change as communities were growing and people were moving around.
Communication and literacy 'boomed'. People could read and find out more than other people, these people could then start making decisions about things as they knew from reading. Religious and political power was fuelling this.
'Trickle Down Theory'
- Upper class could read and write which made other classes realise that this is what they wanted to do and gain a cultural awareness about themselves, as they felt excluded. Idea of it trickling down the classes.
Between the 15th and 18th century, the output of books and printed material was a massive change. There were over 1,000,000,000 copies printed in the 18th century.
You could only produce 200 pages by hand with the Guggenheim Press, but this soon developed.
Again this was largely fuelled by religion - as this was something to tell people about and keep publishing.
People wanted to put their ideas / philosophies out in the world - scholars.
After the Guggenheim Press, the world became more communicative and visual.
Master craftsman were crafting hot led press letters that were set into forms - this brought through the idea of glyphs. This came purely through laziness - it's a lot easier to write & instead of 'and'.
Typesetters were thought of as designers.
Using letters in a very visual way - to the point where they had no meaning (creating faces out of letterforms, for example)
Marshall McLuhan, 1911-1980
'The Medium is The Message'
- Spoke about the idea of the Global Village and predicted the world wide web 30 years before it was technologically conceived.
- Knew a lot about mass communication.
- New technologies and speech were developed - letterforms always stay the same, but language changes.
- Talks about how through language and reading, technology changed how we deal with society and how we think - made us explore things, pushed scientific development, pushed religion, changed social interaction.
Explores:
Democracy, capitalism, nationalism, individualism
Linotype Machine - 1884
- Revolutionised the way of printing.
- You could type something and it would come out as a solid block of type.
- The world changes so quickly and you couldn't keep up to date with typesetting as easily as you could with line casting.
- Started in late 1800s and stayed in business until the 1960s-70s.
- Possible for a relatively small amount of people to write a newspaper.
- Things could be changed and corrected.
- No governing body on the information - lots of communication and falsities, a lot of propaganda.
- Wasn't a pretty machine, but you could see how technology was pushed and keyboards were being developed.
- All newspapers were printed with these in 60s and 70s, for example New York Times.
- Died in 1980s, because it was replaced by computers.
- All the skills and crafts of line casting didn't matter any more - it was a particular skill.
Etching
- One of the first etchings was based on religion.
- A good way of decorating suits of armour.
- Mass Communication happened, because of the visuals
Lithography
- Stone, oil and wax - incredibly cheap.
- Things could be printed as a mass.
William Morris
- In terms of Victoriana it was the time of excess.
- People wanted to create ornate and decorative images / products.
- Everything was over the top.
- The Victoria Quarter in Leeds is a particularly good example of this.
- People looked at craft, colour and making really pretty visually impactive products / images.
1870
- The beginning of Propaganda.
- A way of advertising.
- People had money in America and UK, so the way we printed changed.
- During the Spanish Civil War there were less colours and the prints were cheaper. 1936
Modernism
- very crisp and clean
If it is print then it is seen to be true.
It is correct. It is factual.
German Nazi Propaganda
- One of the first propaganda that was produced at a mass.
- Society was changing so you were replying on print to spread Propaganda in a simple way.
- You didn't need to be able to read to understand.
- Cheap way of producing it, because of the few colours used.
1930s
- American poster that was designed for print.
- Clean lines, little colours, low cost.
Communication. Reproduction. Distrobution.
The Daily Star Newspaper
- February 2010, "We'll stand up and fight for Britain's brave war heroes - EDL Protest.
- Aimed at demographic of the country.
- Printed and people are buying it - believing that it's true because it's printed.
- Essentially propaganda.
- Run by the BMP.
- 98% of the people said that they would vote for the BMP after reading the newspaper, yet only 70% knew who the BMP were.
Andre The Giant
- Wrestler in the 90s from France.
- 7ft4.
- Jake The Snake had a snake that he would bring into the ring called Damian. He would bring his snake to the Royal Rumble in WWE. Andre The Giant was scared to death of snakes and was humiliated. Andre lost his contract because of this. Nobody liked Andre anymore.
- Propaganda was produced based on Andre The Giant - "Andre The Giant Has A Posse"
- This developed into Shepard Fairy' 'Obey' out of Andre's face - street art.
- The images were screen printed at first, but this was limiting and more expensive, so it became photocopied.
- Was really undercurrent that no one real knew about - underground street artist interesting in wrestling.
- Shepard Fairy ultimately went on to produce a print of Obama that we connected with as we knew who he was. This connected with the youth who don't vote - in America that demographic changed the world as the image became iconic.
