Grafico
Graphic Design
Graphic/Communication includes symbols such as glyphs and icons, images such as drawings and photographs, and can include the passive contributions of the substrate, color, and surroundings. It is the process of creating, producing, and distributing material incorporating words and images to convey data, concepts, and emotions. The field of graphic communications encompasses all phases of the graphic communications processes from the origination of the idea through reproduction, finishing, and distribution of two- or three-dimensional products or electronic transmission.
The Timeline presented below is the result of a collective effort to gather data regarding Italic Graphic/Communication Design, It combines the most relevant Artworks over the history, the Map shows the locations for the studios and universities related to this discipline and the Calendar indicates events and exhibitions about graphic/communication design.
753 BC - Founding of Rome
476 - Rome falls
ROMAN
(500 B.C.- A.D. 476)
The inscriptional capitals on Roman buildings and monuments were structured on a euclidean geometric scheme and the discrete component-based model of classical architecture. In the future, their structurally perfect design near-perfect execution in stone balanced angled stressing, contrasting thick and thin strokes, and incised serifs became the typographic ideal for western civilization.
ARTE ANTICA
493–552 - Kingdom of the Ostrogoths
781–1014 - Italian Lombard kingdom
831–1072 - Emirate of Sicily
MIDDLE AGES
(500-1400)
Typography, type-founding, and typeface design began in mid-15th-century Europe with the introduction of movable type printing. Its rapid spread across Europe produced additional Gothic, half-Gothic, and Gothic-to-Roman transitional types. German typography remained true to the gothic spirit; but the parallel influence of the humanist and neo-classical typography in Italy (the second country where movable type printing was done) catalyzed texture into four additional sub-styles that were distinct, structurally rich and highly disciplined: Bastarda, fraktur, rotunda, and Schwabacher.
MEDIOEVO
1440 - Gutenberg’s printing press
1492 - Columbus lands in New World
RENAISSANCE
(1400–1550)
Rebirth of classical (Roman) culture
"Cursiva humanistica" is slanted and rapid-ly written letter evolved from humanistic minuscule and the remaining Gothic current cursive hands in Italy, served as the model for cursive or italic typefaces. As books printed with early roman types forced humanistic minuscule out of use, cursiva humanistica gained favor as a manuscript hand for the purpose of writing. The popu-larity of cursive writing itself may have created some demand for a type of this style.
RINASCIMENTO
Nicholas Jenson (1420 – 1480)
French engraver, pioneer, printer and type designer who carried out most of his work in Venice, Italy. Jenson acted as Master of the French Royal Mint at Tours and is credited with being the creator of one of the finest early Roman typefaces. Nicholas Jenson has been something of an iconic figure among students of early printing since the nineteenth century when the aesthete William Morris praised the beauty and perfection of his roman font. Jenson is an important figure in the early history of printing and a pivotal force in the emergence of Venice as one of the first great centers of the printing press.
NEOCLASSICISMO
1816 - Sans-serif letter form
NEOCLASSICISM
(1750-1850)
In the 18th century, some designers tired of the Rococo style and instead sought inspiration from Classical art. This interest was inspired by recent archaeological finds, the popularity of travel in Greece, Italy, and Egypt, and the publication of information about Classical works. Neoclassical typographical designs used straight lines, rectilinear forms, and restrained geometric ornamentation.
Giambattista Bodoni (1740 - 1813)
Giambattista Bodoni achieved Neoclassical ideals and laid forth his design statement in Manuale tipografico (1788). He achieved a purity of form with sparse pages, generous margins and line-spacing, and severe geometric types; this functional purity avoided any distractions from the act of reading.
The Industrial Revolution was a dynamic process that began in the late 18th century and lasted well into the 19th century. Society found new ways (often commercial) to use graphic designs and developed new technologies to produce them. Industrial technology lowered the cost of printing and paper while making much larger press runs possible, thus allowing a designer’s work to reach a wider audience than ever before.
One of the most popular medium for the graphic designer became the poster.
XX SECOLO
LIBERTY (1890-1914)
The graphic style of this period was influenced by the art and styles of other countries - symbolism and the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
The name of Italian Art Nouveau, Liberty style, comes from the name of the shopping center in London “Liberty”.
1890
Giovanni Mataloni and Marcello Dudovich made advertisements in their individual and relevant style.
Leonetto Cappiello created over a hundred posters combining art nouveau and art deco and became popular in Italy and France.
1903 - The first airplane
1904 - international exposition in Turin
1909 - Manifesto del Futurismo
FUTURISM (1909-1920)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that started in Italy.
It focused on and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England, and elsewhere. The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti began the movement in his Futurist Manifesto.
1900
Forunato Depero
Helped the expansion of typography through his book Depero Futurista (1927), in advertising by his Vogue covers (1929, 1930), and formally by a poster titled Subway (1929).
Bruno Munari (1907 - 1998)
Italian artist, designer, and inventor who contributed fundamentals to many fields of visual arts (painting, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphic design) in modernism, futurism, and concrete art, and in non-visual arts (literature, poetry) with his research on games, didactic method, movement, tactile learning, kinesthetic learning, and creativity.
Franco Grignani (1908 - 1999)
Italian architect, graphic designer, and artist. He is best known for black and white graphics, particularly the Woolmark logo, which was voted 'Best Logo of all Time' by Creative Review Magazine in 2011.
1914 - 1918 - World War I
1919 - 1933 Bauhaus
DADA, SURREALISM
(1916–1923)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that started in Italy.
It focused on and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England, and elsewhere. The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti began the movement in his Futurist Manifesto.
The popularization of collage technique and photography in posters.
1910
Giovanni Pintori (1912 - 1999)
Italian graphic designer is known mostly for his advertising work with Olivetti. He is known for his use of geometric shapes and minimalist style in his advertising posters, specifically his posters for the Lettera 22 and the Olivetti logo.
At the International exhibition, the 1925 Italian pavilion was designed in antique style in full accordance with the rhetoric of d'Annunzio about the heroic past of Italy. There was also one room with the work of futurists. In the period between the two world wars, Italian decorative art was a union of modernism and classical styles. Before World War II futuristic motifs dominated the Italian decorative style, advertising illustrations, layout, and typography. Symmetry, layered shapes, intricate line art, rectilinear geometry, aerodynamic curves, metallic colors like gold and chrome.
ART DECO
(1910-1939)
1939 - 1945 - World War II
1922 - Appearance of the term
"graphic design"
1925 - International Exhibition
of Modern Decorative
and Industrial Arts
1920-1940
AG Fronzoni (1923–2002)
Internationally acclaimed Italian designer and architect, and the undisputed master of minimalist design in both the fields of graphics and furniture.
Bob Noorda (1927 - 2010)
Dutch-born Italian graphic designer who lived and worked primarily in Milan from 1954 until his death. His works included design projects for major corporations and large-scale retail chains, publishing houses as well as public works such as the Milan Metro and NYC subway sign and image systems.
Massimo Vignelli (1931-2014)
Italian designer who worked in a number of areas ranging from package design through houseware design and furniture design to public signage and showroom design. His ethos was, "If you can design one thing, you can design everything," and this was reflected in the broad range of his work. Vignelli worked firmly within the Modernist tradition and focused on simplicity through the use of basic geometric forms in all his work.
Italo Lupi (1934)
Italian internationally acclaimed designer, one of the most-known Italian graphic designers worldwide.
1951 - Color TV
1957 - Helvetica
INTERNATIONAL TYPOGRAPHY
(1950-1980)
Swiss Style: A new graphic design style emerged in Switzerland in the 1950s that would become the predominant graphic style in the world (also in Italy) by the ‘70s. Because of its strong reliance on typographic elements, the new style came to be known as the International Typographic Style. The style was marked by the use of a mathematical grid to provide an overall orderly and unified structure; sans serif typefaces (especially Helvetica, introduced in 1957) in a flush left and ragged right format; and black and white photography in place of drawn illustration. The overall impression was simple and rational, tightly structured and serious, clear and objective, and harmonious.
1950-1960
Louise Fili (1951)
Expert in Italian visual culture, is an internationally celebrated creative director, graphic designer, type designer, and author.
By the late 1970s, many designers working in the Modernist tradition thought that the movement had become academic and lost its capacity for innovation. Younger designers challenged and rejected the tenets of Modernism and questioned the “form-follows-function” philosophy that came to be associated with the diluted, corporate version of Modern-ism that derived from the International Typographic Style. Designers began to establish and then violate grid patterns; to invert expected forms; to explore historical and decorative elements; and to inject subjective—even eccentric—concepts into design.
POSTMODERNISM
(1970-1990)
1966 - 1980 Anti-Design, Superstudio Studio, Alchymia
1970-1980
Minya Mikic (1975)
Minya Mikic (born Minja Višekruna, 1975, in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia) is an Italian artist, painter, and graphic designer. She lives and works between Rome and Zurich and regularly exhibits her work in Europe and New York.
In her artistic style, she developed a new technique based on natural, pure pigments applied on canvas or sleek surfaces of Plexiglas.
Over the course of the 1980s and early ’90s, rapid advances in digital computer hardware and software radically altered graphic design. It's a period of experimentation that occurred in the design of new and unusual typefaces and page layouts.
THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION
(1990-2000)
1987 - Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
1995 - Internet
2000 - Digitalization