Graphic Design Before Graphic Designers: The Printer as Designer and Craftsman, 1700-1914

$60.00

Jury, David. Graphic Design Before Graphic Designers: The Printer as Designer and Craftsman, 1700-1914

Cl. Thames & Hudson. 2012

Book ID: 92207

This lavish volume is a vibrant mix of beautifully crafted printed ephemera from the past. It is a visual journey through the pre-history of graphic design, charting the printer's progress from jobbing tradesman to the heights and hallowed status as artistic printer. Showcasing work from a host of anonymous talents whose names are lost to history as well as seminal, pioneering typographers, artists and printers, such as Giambattista Bodoni, William Morris and Oscar Harpel, it reveals how those working on both sides of the Atlantic responded to everyday communication issues with original solutions and breathaking flair and skill. The extraoridinarily diverse results - the precursor of what we now call graphic design - are a celebratory cultural feast of the jobbing printer's contribution to visual culture and heritage.

312 pp.