DS1 Topic 4 and 5 Notes

25/5/17 - Week 8
DST60103, Yip Jinchi
Design Studies I: Communication Theory
Topic 4 and 5 notes

Topic 4 Typography and Print Media

The history of printed media and communication follows the progress of civilization and technology. The first recorded method of written communication was long ago as 25,000-3000 years B.C. when humans painted on walls, communicating their beliefs, fears and everyday life. The writing system began with the transition of hunter-gatherer societies to more permanent encampments when it became necessary to count property. 

One of the earliest examples was found in Mesopotamia in 3500 B.C., where the Sumerians developed cuneiform to write on clay tablets. The Egyptians later developed hieroglyphic writing; they were used by scribes and priests for taxation. The Chinese developed their own style in 1900 B.C, preserving their writing on bone. The first alphabet script appeared in Palestine in 160 B.C, which influenced early Phoenician and Hebrew scripts. The Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenician script, which later was the source of the Latin Alphabet.

Mediums and Printing

In the beginning, stone and clay tablets were used for writing. Then came papyrus rolls by the Egyptians and dry reed parchment from China. In 105 B.C Tsai Lun of China invented Paper. Pi Sheng of China then started to print with movable clay type using wood-blick printing. In 100 A.D. the first bound book was on the market. Pi Sheng's prnting press was basic, but became the foundation for all the machines that came after. In 1450, Johannes Gutenberg made the first mass printing press. HIs press involved rolling ink over palced blocks, followed by paper being pressed against it. The press was faster and easier to use. Bookmaking became inexpensive and become much more available to the public. The first printed newspaper in Germany came out in 1609. The first daily printed newspaper came in England, called the "Daily Courant" in the 1690s. In 1881 halftone press made it possible to reproduce photographs in books and newspapers. 

The industrial revolution brought major innovations to printing tech. Steam power applied to printing press sped up printing. Typesetting done by Linotype (1889) and then Monotype machine made the process even faster.

Typography

Is the design of arranging text and modifying letters. It is visual design of text. Early 20th centurt art movements influenced the developement of typography:

• Futurism (the beginning of modern type)
• Russian Constructivism 
• Dada (no rules)

Various forms of print media have undergone drastic changes. Development of printing technology has allowed the public wide access to newspapers. Magazines started to have advertisements, making them inexepensive and easily available as well as image-heavy. 

Topic 5 Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs and how they work. It is concerned with how we make meaning and find patterns of organisation. Plato has a concept called Platonic Heaven: a place where eternal unchanging truths where "real exists". What we perceive on earth are only pale copies. He says there is a natural connection between words and concepts. 

Ferdinand de Saussure says language is made up of signs. Signified + Signifier = Sign.

Signifier = a sound or image

Signified = an idea or concept

The sign is  arbitrary. A word is a phonetic sound has an agreed upon meaning in social, historical and cultural contexts. Meanings change over time, a meaning is not contained in a word or thing itself but rather in a relationship to the entire system. Meaning is always absent and depends on an underlying system based on relationships.

Symbols - a signifier is arbitrary does not resemble the signified so the relationship must be learnt, e.g. traffic signs

Icon - the signifier resembles or imitates the signified e..g caricature

Index - the signifiier is not arbitrary but directly connected (physically) to the signified e.g. footsteps