History of graphic design
Encyclopedia
Graphics are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Mayan and Aztec art

Graphics (from Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 Graphikos ) are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Mayan and Aztec art

Graphics (from Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 Graphikos ) are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Mayan and Aztec art

Graphics (from Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 Graphikos ) are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Mayan and Aztec art

Graphics (from Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 Graphikos ) are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Rock and cave art


Image:Chauvethorses.jpg | Drawing of horses in the Chauvet cave.
Image:Lascaux2.jpg| Drawing of a horse in the Lascaux cave.
Image:Bhimbetka rock paintng1.jpg| A rock drawing in Bhimbetka India.
Image:Kakadu-painting-hero.jpg| Aboriginal Rock Art, Ubirr Art Site, Kakadu National Park, Australia

Writing


Image:LantingXu.jpg| The Lantingji Xu, Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion
Orchid Pavilion Gathering
The Orchid Pavilion Gathering was a cultural and poetic event during the Six Dynasties era, in China. This event itself has a certain inherent and poetic interest in regards to the development of landscape poetry and the philosophical ideas of Zhuangzi...

 is the most famous work of Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi, created in year 353.

Image:Scribe's exercise tablet 1.jpg| Scribe's exercise tablet with hieratic text on wood, related to Dynasty XVIII, reign of Amenhotep I
Amenhotep I
Amenhotep I was the second Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. His reign is generally dated from 1526 to 1506 BC. He was born to Ahmose I and Ahmose-Nefertari, but had at least two elder brothers, Ahmose-ankh and Ahmose Sapair, and was not expected to inherit the throne...

, c. 1514-1493 BC. Text is an excerpt from The Instructions of Amenemhat II
Amenemhat II
Nubkhaure Amenemhat II was the third pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Not much is known about his reign. He ruled Egypt for 35 years from 1929 BC to 1895 BC and was the son of Senusret I through the latter's chief wife, Queen Nefru. His queen is not known; although recently a...

(Dynasty XII), and reads: "Be on your guard against all who are subordinate to you ... Trust no brother, know no friend, make no intimates."

Image:Title epilogue written by Wen Zhengming in Ni Zan's portrait by Qiu Ying.jpg| A Chinese traditional title epilogue written by Wen Zhengming
Wen Zhengming
Wen Zhengming was a leading Ming Dynasty painter, calligrapher, and scholar.Born in present-day Suzhou, he claimed to be a descendant of the Song Dynasty prime minister and patriot Wen Tianxiang. Wen’s family was originally from Hengyang, Hunan, where his family had established itself shortly...

 in Ni Zan
Ni Zan
Ni Zan was a Chinese painter during the Yuan Dynasty. Along with Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, and Wang Meng, he is considered to be one of the four "Late Yuan" masters....

's portrait by Qiu Ying
Qiu Ying
Qiu Ying was a Chinese painter who specialized in the gongbi brush technique.Qiu Ying's courtesy name was Shifu , and his pseudonym was Shizhou . He was born to a peasant family in Taicang and studied painting under Zhou Chen in Suzhou...

.(1470–1559)

Image:Egypt dauingevekten.jpg| The Papyrus of Ani
Papyrus of Ani
The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus manuscript written in cursive hieroglyphs and illustrated with color miniatures created in the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt ....

 is a version of the Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

 for the Scribe Ani. This vignette (small scene that illustrates the text) is Chapter for not letting Ani's heart create opposition against him in the God's Domain. (1240s BC).

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.


Image:LindisfarneFol27rIncipitMatt.jpg|A page from Lindisfarne Gospels
Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the British Library...

, c. 710
Image:Meister der Ada-Gruppe 001.jpg| The Ada Gospels
Ada Gospels
The Ada Gospels is a late eighth century or early ninth century Carolingian gospel book. The manuscript contains a dedication to Charlemagne's sister Ada, whence it gets its name. The manuscript is written on vellum in Carolingian minuscule. It measures 14.5 by 9.625 inches...

 are one of a group of manuscripts, known to modern scholars as the Ada School. Its illuminations include an elaborate initial page for the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 and portraits of Matthew
Matthew the Evangelist
Matthew the Evangelist was, according to the Bible, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the four Evangelists.-Identity:...

, Mark
Mark the Evangelist
Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....

 and Luke
Luke
Luke is a male given name, and less commonly, a surname.The name Luke is derived from the Latin name , from an Ancient Greek , meaning "man from Lucania". The earliest known recording of the name is from the Bible, The Gospel of Luke, which was written around AD 70 to 90, and it is from here...

. Late 8th century
Image:KellsDecoratedInitial.jpg| A graphic decoration in the Book of Kells
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...

, c. 800
Image:BookOfDurrowBeginMarkGospel.jpg| Opening page of Book of Durrow
Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is a 7th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book in the Insular style. It was probably created between 650 and 700, in Northumbria in Northern England, where Lindisfarne or Durham would be the likely candidates, or on the island of Iona in the Scottish Inner Hebrides...

, 7th century

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Image:Qur'an folio 11th century kufic.jpg| A page from a Persian Quran in 11th century.
Image:AndalusQuran.JPG| Graphic art in an Egyptian Quran of 9-10th century.
Image:Large Koran.jpg| An Iranian Quran of 15th century found in Uzbekistan.
Image:Abbasid Koran folio from Egypt.jpg| A Quran with Kuffi Alphabeth of 12th century.

Calligraphy


Image:Schedel register.jpg | Many believe that calligraphy adds a mystical dimension to a writing. Such mysticism appears to be consistent with the feeling that a religious text tries to convey. This is why to create a spritual feeling many religious texts use calligraphy.

Image:Zhao Meng Fu Autumn Colors Part2.jpg|Art of calligraphy in China goes back to 2000 BC. Chinese calligraphy was used to communicate the philosophical ideas of Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

 and Hundred Schools of Thought
Hundred Schools of Thought
The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophers and schools that flourished from 770 to 221 BC during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period , an era of great cultural and intellectual expansion in China...

 (諸子百家; zhūzǐ bǎijiā")
Image:Taigado gafu0.jpg|Calligraphy entered Japan in the third century BC from China during its states wars. Japanese used calligraphy to write their haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

s on decorative banners.

Maps


Image:Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World). Page 2 Hand-copied manuscript map Korea mid-eighteenth century.jpg|This is Page 2 of a hand-copied manuscript map from Korea, Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World), mid-eighteenth century.
Image:Reiner Ottens. Atlas maior cvm generales omnivm.jpg|This is page 2 and 3 of a hand-colored engraving of Reiner Ottens' Atlas maior cvm generales omnivm.Amsterdam 1729. The constellations on this chart are elaborately represented by figures from classical antiquity. In the corners of the chart are illustrations of four European observatories, including that of the noted sixteenth-century astronomer Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...

 (1546-1601).

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.


Image:Chinese Playing Cards mahjong 1.jpg|These four chromolithograph Chinese cards from Mah Jong pack, c.1910, depict characters from the 'Story of the Water Margin'. There are 108 cards in the suit. The origin of Mah Jong has been traced to Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

 who had developed the game about 500 BC. The appearance of the game in various Chinese provinces coincides with Confucius' travels at the time he was teaching his new doctrines. Confucius was said to be fond of birds, which would explain the name Mah Jong (Hemp Bird).

Image: Card designs from the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt c. 1500.jpg| These are Card designs from the Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

 Sultanate of Egypt. c. 1500. According to a passage in Ibn Taghri Birdi's HISTORY OF EGYPT, 1382-1469 A.D., the future sultan al-Malik al-Mu'ayyad won a large sum of money in a game of cards. In the Islamic empire playing cards the suits were coins, cups, swords, and polo sticks.

Image:Suit Systems in different European countries.gif|When the Islamic empire playing cards were introduced to Italy, the batons (which were in fact the empire's polo sticks) were changed into smooth rods with decorated ends. In Spain and Portugal, they became rough cudgels.

Image:Ober of Acorns and Unter of leaves from a Nurnberger pack.gif|During the fifteenth century, Germans introduced wooden blocks printing technique to produce playing cards. They could quickly export these cards throughout Europe because of their lower costs. The substitution of wood blocking and hand coloring with copper plate engraving during the sixteenth century was the next significant innovation in the manufacturing of playing cards. The mass printing of playing cards was revolutionized with the introduction of color lithography in the early nineteen century.


German suits


Image:The extinct Ancbacher Nurenberg Design by F.X Scmid.JPG|The extinct Ancbacher Nuremberg design (by F.X Schmid).
Image:German Single-headed Schwerterkarte (by SA).JPG|German single-headed Schwerterkarte playing cards,(by SA)
Image:A northern Germany suit design by ASS.JPG|File:A northern Germany suit design of playing cards (by ASS).
Image:German Art Nouveau playing cards printed in Attenburg 1900.jpg|German art nouveau playing cards printed in Attenburg, 1900.

Selected European suits


Image:Traditinal English Courts 1827.gif|Traditional English playing cards, James Hardy, London 1827. and Germany C 1810
Image:Latvian playing cards designed by Arturs Dubrus in 1942.jpg|Latvian playing cards designed by Arturs Dubrus in 1942.
Image:Tarot cards from France and Germany C 1810.jpg|Tarot cards from France and Germany C 1810
Image:Soviet playing card with Mayan Image, 1960s copy.jpg|Russian playing cards with Mayan Image, 1960s.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Image:Meister von Nerezi 001.jpg|Frescoes in Nerezi near Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...

 (1164). The Byzantine graphic art emerges out of artists attempt to convey divine spiritual statements. The graphic represents the Christian narrative of salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

 in stylized two dimensional elongated figures.

Image:Meister von San Vitale in Ravenna 003.jpg|Mosaic from Basilica of San Vitale
Basilica of San Vitale
The Church of San Vitale — styled an "ecclesiastical basilica" in the Roman Catholic Church, though it is not of architectural basilica form — is a church in Ravenna, Italy, one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine Art and architecture in western Europe...

 in Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

, Italy, showing the Emperor Justinian and Bishop Maximian of Ravenna surrounded by clerics and soldiers. Here the graphic statement conveys the unification of the church and state.

Image:Meister der Demetrius-Kirche in Saloniki 002.jpg|Mosaic from the church of Hagios Demetrios in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

, late 7th or early 8th century, showing St. Demetrios with donors. Artists used highly decorative, symbolic, and flattened graphical representations of Christian saints by setting small pieces of colored glass into the mortar of the church walls at different angles to catch the light. An heavenly atmosphere was created by using gold backgrounds together with haloed figures.

Image:Virgin Psychosostria Ohrid14th century.jpg|Two-sided icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

 with the Virgin Psychosostria (saver of souls) and the Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...

.Byzantine (Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

), early 14th century. One of the most important genres of Byzantine graphic art was the icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

, an stylized image of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint, used as an object of veneration in Orthodox churches and private homes alike.


Miniatures


Image:Henry1.jpg|In this miniature painting of king Henry I of England
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

, from illuminated Chronicle of Matthew, Paris, (1236-1259), now in British Library, many of the principles of the modern graphic design is followed. The 13th century paintings with their bright and golden colors were influenced by the Byzantine art. After the crusaders' sack of Constantinople in 1204, many works of Byzantine art entered and influenced Western Europe.

Image:Layla_and_Majnun.jpg| ٔIn this Iranian miniature
Persian miniature
A Persian miniature is a small painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a muraqqa. The techniques are broadly comparable to the Western and Byzantine traditions of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts...

, based on the tragedy of two lovers Laily and Majnoon by Nizami Ganjavi,(second half of the 16th century) the broken perspective, together with utilization of text and design is used to communicate the message of the story.
Image:Twolovers.jpg|In this 16th century miniature of Reza Abbasi
Reza Abbasi
Riza Abbasi, Riza yi-Abbasi or Reza-e Abbasi, رضا عباسی in Persian, usually "Riza" or Reza Abbasi also Aqa Riza or Āqā Riżā Kāshānī was the leading Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid period, spending most of his career working for Shah Abbas I...

 the simplicity of composition and the harmony of color scheme are consistent with the minimalist principles of the modern graphic design.

Image:Indischer Maler um 1710 001.jpg| The Iranian graphic designers of Indian court Mir Sid Ali, and Abdol-Sanad Khan in the second half of the 16th century influenced the Indian miniature paintings. In this 18th century miniature the impact of this influence can be detected.


Asian paintings: China, Japan, and Vietnam



Image:Ma Lin 001.jpg| The study of graphic design technique and the drawing style in this early 13th century work of the Chinese painter Ma Lin
Ma Lin
Ma Lin is a fictional character in the Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. He ranks 67th of the 108 Liangshan heroes and 31st of the 72 Earthly Fiends. He is nicknamed "Iron Flute Deity".-Background:...

 is revealing. The artist conveys his message by breaking the perspective rules of proportionality. For example, the person in front of the picture is smaller than the person in the back. This is intended to show that the person in the back is of greater importance (perhaps he is a sage or a spiritual teacher), The composition of trees in the form of an X, which is centered on the main character, adds to his significance. These techniques are being used in the modern graphic design.

Image:SharakuTwoActors.jpg| This wood print of the 18th century, a graphic work by the Japanese artist Toshusai Sharaku, is a two-dimensional compositional design. Japanese woodblock printing
Woodblock printing
Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper....

 and painting style have influenced the design of modern posters through the works of artists like Toulouse Lautrec.

Image:Figures in a cortege, tomb of Li Xian, Tang Dynasty.jpg|This Chinese wall painting of figures in a cortege, in the tomb of Li Xian
Li Xian
Li Xian , courtesy name Mingyun , formally Crown Prince Zhanghuai , named Li De from 672 to 674, was a crown prince of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. He was the sixth son of Emperor Gaozong, and the second son of his second wife Empress Wu...

, during Tang Dynasty in the 7th century uses a simplified composition, together with a particular use of a color scheme in order to create an intended impact. The artist uses two parallel lines created by the composition of soldiers' black boots and red hats and visually connects them by the linear composition of their rifles.

Image:Fish.JPG| This Vietnamese woodprint of the village of Dong Ho Painting
Dong Ho Painting
Dong Ho painting , full name Dong Ho folk woodcut painting is a genre of Vietnamese woodcut paintings originated from Dong Ho village in Bac Ninh Province, Vietnam...

 creates a specific aesthetic impact that can be attributed to its graphic design

Pottery

From ancient times graphic design has been used for decoration of pottery and ceramics


Image:NAMA Pélée, Achille & Chiron.jpg| This Greek lekythos
Lekythos
A lekythos is a type of Greek pottery used for storing oil , especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel. The lekythos was used for anointing dead bodies of unmarried men and many lekythoi are found in tombs. The images on lekythoi were often...

 (used for storing oil, especially olive oil) depicts the scene when Peleus
Peleus
In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...

 (left) entrusts his son Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

 (centre) to Centaur Chiron
Chiron
In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur among his brethren.-History:Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents...

 (right). White-ground black-figured by the Edinburgh Painter, ca. 500 BC. From Eretria
Eretria
Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...

.National Archaeological Museum of Athens
National Archaeological Museum of Athens
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek...

.

Image:Halafpottery.jpg| In the period 6500–5500 B.C., the farming society of Halaf in northern Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

 and Syria produced pottery that is among the finest in the Near East. The Halaf potters used different sources of clay from their neighbors and created interesting pottery.

Native American graphic art



Image:Jar p1070229.jpg| Art and religion are integral to all Native American indigenous peoples that come from many cultural groups and more than 500 tribal nations. They create designs that have been described as bold and imaginative graphic designs in both ceremonial and utilitarian objects. Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The museum, which opened in 1894, consists of over...



Image:Huaco Nazca.jpg| The Nazca
Nazca
Nazca is a system of valleys on the southern coast of Peru, and the name of the region's largest existing town in the Nazca Province. It is also the name applied to the Nazca culture that flourished in the area between 300 BC and AD 800...

 natives of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 are best known for their polychrome pottery, with colorful graphic designs.

Image:Featheredserpentnotchedplatevol2mississip86.png| Notched plate of stone from Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 region, with graphic design engraving of feathered rattlesnake.

Image:Maya vase Branly 70-1998-5-1 n1.jpg| A Maya
Maya art
Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya civilization, that took shape in the course the Preclassic period , and grew greater during the Classic period Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya...

 vase of the codex style, representing a lord of the underworld stripped of his clothes and headgear by the young Maize divinity, assisted by a midget and a hunchback. Terracotta, northern Petén (Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

), 7th-10th century.


Mayan and Aztec art

Graphics (from Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 Graphikos ) are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Rock and cave art


Image:Chauvethorses.jpg | Drawing of horses in the Chauvet cave.
Image:Lascaux2.jpg| Drawing of a horse in the Lascaux cave.
Image:Bhimbetka rock paintng1.jpg| A rock drawing in Bhimbetka India.
Image:Kakadu-painting-hero.jpg| Aboriginal Rock Art, Ubirr Art Site, Kakadu National Park, Australia

Writing


Image:LantingXu.jpg| The Lantingji Xu, Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion
Orchid Pavilion Gathering
The Orchid Pavilion Gathering was a cultural and poetic event during the Six Dynasties era, in China. This event itself has a certain inherent and poetic interest in regards to the development of landscape poetry and the philosophical ideas of Zhuangzi...

 is the most famous work of Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi, created in year 353.

Image:Scribe's exercise tablet 1.jpg| Scribe's exercise tablet with hieratic text on wood, related to Dynasty XVIII, reign of Amenhotep I
Amenhotep I
Amenhotep I was the second Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. His reign is generally dated from 1526 to 1506 BC. He was born to Ahmose I and Ahmose-Nefertari, but had at least two elder brothers, Ahmose-ankh and Ahmose Sapair, and was not expected to inherit the throne...

, c. 1514-1493 BC. Text is an excerpt from The Instructions of Amenemhat II
Amenemhat II
Nubkhaure Amenemhat II was the third pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Not much is known about his reign. He ruled Egypt for 35 years from 1929 BC to 1895 BC and was the son of Senusret I through the latter's chief wife, Queen Nefru. His queen is not known; although recently a...

(Dynasty XII), and reads: "Be on your guard against all who are subordinate to you ... Trust no brother, know no friend, make no intimates."

Image:Title epilogue written by Wen Zhengming in Ni Zan's portrait by Qiu Ying.jpg| A Chinese traditional title epilogue written by Wen Zhengming
Wen Zhengming
Wen Zhengming was a leading Ming Dynasty painter, calligrapher, and scholar.Born in present-day Suzhou, he claimed to be a descendant of the Song Dynasty prime minister and patriot Wen Tianxiang. Wen’s family was originally from Hengyang, Hunan, where his family had established itself shortly...

 in Ni Zan
Ni Zan
Ni Zan was a Chinese painter during the Yuan Dynasty. Along with Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, and Wang Meng, he is considered to be one of the four "Late Yuan" masters....

's portrait by Qiu Ying
Qiu Ying
Qiu Ying was a Chinese painter who specialized in the gongbi brush technique.Qiu Ying's courtesy name was Shifu , and his pseudonym was Shizhou . He was born to a peasant family in Taicang and studied painting under Zhou Chen in Suzhou...

.(1470–1559)

Image:Egypt dauingevekten.jpg| The Papyrus of Ani
Papyrus of Ani
The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus manuscript written in cursive hieroglyphs and illustrated with color miniatures created in the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt ....

 is a version of the Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

 for the Scribe Ani. This vignette (small scene that illustrates the text) is Chapter for not letting Ani's heart create opposition against him in the God's Domain. (1240s BC).

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.


Image:LindisfarneFol27rIncipitMatt.jpg|A page from Lindisfarne Gospels
Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the British Library...

, c. 710
Image:Meister der Ada-Gruppe 001.jpg| The Ada Gospels
Ada Gospels
The Ada Gospels is a late eighth century or early ninth century Carolingian gospel book. The manuscript contains a dedication to Charlemagne's sister Ada, whence it gets its name. The manuscript is written on vellum in Carolingian minuscule. It measures 14.5 by 9.625 inches...

 are one of a group of manuscripts, known to modern scholars as the Ada School. Its illuminations include an elaborate initial page for the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 and portraits of Matthew
Matthew the Evangelist
Matthew the Evangelist was, according to the Bible, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the four Evangelists.-Identity:...

, Mark
Mark the Evangelist
Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....

 and Luke
Luke
Luke is a male given name, and less commonly, a surname.The name Luke is derived from the Latin name , from an Ancient Greek , meaning "man from Lucania". The earliest known recording of the name is from the Bible, The Gospel of Luke, which was written around AD 70 to 90, and it is from here...

. Late 8th century
Image:KellsDecoratedInitial.jpg| A graphic decoration in the Book of Kells
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...

, c. 800
Image:BookOfDurrowBeginMarkGospel.jpg| Opening page of Book of Durrow
Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is a 7th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book in the Insular style. It was probably created between 650 and 700, in Northumbria in Northern England, where Lindisfarne or Durham would be the likely candidates, or on the island of Iona in the Scottish Inner Hebrides...

, 7th century

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Image:Qur'an folio 11th century kufic.jpg| A page from a Persian Quran in 11th century.
Image:AndalusQuran.JPG| Graphic art in an Egyptian Quran of 9-10th century.
Image:Large Koran.jpg| An Iranian Quran of 15th century found in Uzbekistan.
Image:Abbasid Koran folio from Egypt.jpg| A Quran with Kuffi Alphabeth of 12th century.

Calligraphy


Image:Schedel register.jpg | Many believe that calligraphy adds a mystical dimension to a writing. Such mysticism appears to be consistent with the feeling that a religious text tries to convey. This is why to create a spritual feeling many religious texts use calligraphy.

Image:Zhao Meng Fu Autumn Colors Part2.jpg|Art of calligraphy in China goes back to 2000 BC. Chinese calligraphy was used to communicate the philosophical ideas of Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

 and Hundred Schools of Thought
Hundred Schools of Thought
The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophers and schools that flourished from 770 to 221 BC during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period , an era of great cultural and intellectual expansion in China...

 (諸子百家; zhūzǐ bǎijiā")
Image:Taigado gafu0.jpg|Calligraphy entered Japan in the third century BC from China during its states wars. Japanese used calligraphy to write their haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

s on decorative banners.

Maps


Image:Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World). Page 2 Hand-copied manuscript map Korea mid-eighteenth century.jpg|This is Page 2 of a hand-copied manuscript map from Korea, Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World), mid-eighteenth century.
Image:Reiner Ottens. Atlas maior cvm generales omnivm.jpg|This is page 2 and 3 of a hand-colored engraving of Reiner Ottens' Atlas maior cvm generales omnivm.Amsterdam 1729. The constellations on this chart are elaborately represented by figures from classical antiquity. In the corners of the chart are illustrations of four European observatories, including that of the noted sixteenth-century astronomer Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...

 (1546-1601).

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.


Image:Chinese Playing Cards mahjong 1.jpg|These four chromolithograph Chinese cards from Mah Jong pack, c.1910, depict characters from the 'Story of the Water Margin'. There are 108 cards in the suit. The origin of Mah Jong has been traced to Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

 who had developed the game about 500 BC. The appearance of the game in various Chinese provinces coincides with Confucius' travels at the time he was teaching his new doctrines. Confucius was said to be fond of birds, which would explain the name Mah Jong (Hemp Bird).

Image: Card designs from the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt c. 1500.jpg| These are Card designs from the Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

 Sultanate of Egypt. c. 1500. According to a passage in Ibn Taghri Birdi's HISTORY OF EGYPT, 1382-1469 A.D., the future sultan al-Malik al-Mu'ayyad won a large sum of money in a game of cards. In the Islamic empire playing cards the suits were coins, cups, swords, and polo sticks.

Image:Suit Systems in different European countries.gif|When the Islamic empire playing cards were introduced to Italy, the batons (which were in fact the empire's polo sticks) were changed into smooth rods with decorated ends. In Spain and Portugal, they became rough cudgels.

Image:Ober of Acorns and Unter of leaves from a Nurnberger pack.gif|During the fifteenth century, Germans introduced wooden blocks printing technique to produce playing cards. They could quickly export these cards throughout Europe because of their lower costs. The substitution of wood blocking and hand coloring with copper plate engraving during the sixteenth century was the next significant innovation in the manufacturing of playing cards. The mass printing of playing cards was revolutionized with the introduction of color lithography in the early nineteen century.


German suits


Image:The extinct Ancbacher Nurenberg Design by F.X Scmid.JPG|The extinct Ancbacher Nuremberg design (by F.X Schmid).
Image:German Single-headed Schwerterkarte (by SA).JPG|German single-headed Schwerterkarte playing cards,(by SA)
Image:A northern Germany suit design by ASS.JPG|File:A northern Germany suit design of playing cards (by ASS).
Image:German Art Nouveau playing cards printed in Attenburg 1900.jpg|German art nouveau playing cards printed in Attenburg, 1900.

Selected European suits


Image:Traditinal English Courts 1827.gif|Traditional English playing cards, James Hardy, London 1827. and Germany C 1810
Image:Latvian playing cards designed by Arturs Dubrus in 1942.jpg|Latvian playing cards designed by Arturs Dubrus in 1942.
Image:Tarot cards from France and Germany C 1810.jpg|Tarot cards from France and Germany C 1810
Image:Soviet playing card with Mayan Image, 1960s copy.jpg|Russian playing cards with Mayan Image, 1960s.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Image:Meister von Nerezi 001.jpg|Frescoes in Nerezi near Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...

 (1164). The Byzantine graphic art emerges out of artists attempt to convey divine spiritual statements. The graphic represents the Christian narrative of salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

 in stylized two dimensional elongated figures.

Image:Meister von San Vitale in Ravenna 003.jpg|Mosaic from Basilica of San Vitale
Basilica of San Vitale
The Church of San Vitale — styled an "ecclesiastical basilica" in the Roman Catholic Church, though it is not of architectural basilica form — is a church in Ravenna, Italy, one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine Art and architecture in western Europe...

 in Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

, Italy, showing the Emperor Justinian and Bishop Maximian of Ravenna surrounded by clerics and soldiers. Here the graphic statement conveys the unification of the church and state.

Image:Meister der Demetrius-Kirche in Saloniki 002.jpg|Mosaic from the church of Hagios Demetrios in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

, late 7th or early 8th century, showing St. Demetrios with donors. Artists used highly decorative, symbolic, and flattened graphical representations of Christian saints by setting small pieces of colored glass into the mortar of the church walls at different angles to catch the light. An heavenly atmosphere was created by using gold backgrounds together with haloed figures.

Image:Virgin Psychosostria Ohrid14th century.jpg|Two-sided icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

 with the Virgin Psychosostria (saver of souls) and the Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...

.Byzantine (Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

), early 14th century. One of the most important genres of Byzantine graphic art was the icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

, an stylized image of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint, used as an object of veneration in Orthodox churches and private homes alike.


Miniatures


Image:Henry1.jpg|In this miniature painting of king Henry I of England
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

, from illuminated Chronicle of Matthew, Paris, (1236-1259), now in British Library, many of the principles of the modern graphic design is followed. The 13th century paintings with their bright and golden colors were influenced by the Byzantine art. After the crusaders' sack of Constantinople in 1204, many works of Byzantine art entered and influenced Western Europe.

Image:Layla_and_Majnun.jpg| ٔIn this Iranian miniature
Persian miniature
A Persian miniature is a small painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a muraqqa. The techniques are broadly comparable to the Western and Byzantine traditions of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts...

, based on the tragedy of two lovers Laily and Majnoon by Nizami Ganjavi,(second half of the 16th century) the broken perspective, together with utilization of text and design is used to communicate the message of the story.
Image:Twolovers.jpg|In this 16th century miniature of Reza Abbasi
Reza Abbasi
Riza Abbasi, Riza yi-Abbasi or Reza-e Abbasi, رضا عباسی in Persian, usually "Riza" or Reza Abbasi also Aqa Riza or Āqā Riżā Kāshānī was the leading Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid period, spending most of his career working for Shah Abbas I...

 the simplicity of composition and the harmony of color scheme are consistent with the minimalist principles of the modern graphic design.

Image:Indischer Maler um 1710 001.jpg| The Iranian graphic designers of Indian court Mir Sid Ali, and Abdol-Sanad Khan in the second half of the 16th century influenced the Indian miniature paintings. In this 18th century miniature the impact of this influence can be detected.


Asian paintings: China, Japan, and Vietnam



Image:Ma Lin 001.jpg| The study of graphic design technique and the drawing style in this early 13th century work of the Chinese painter Ma Lin
Ma Lin
Ma Lin is a fictional character in the Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. He ranks 67th of the 108 Liangshan heroes and 31st of the 72 Earthly Fiends. He is nicknamed "Iron Flute Deity".-Background:...

 is revealing. The artist conveys his message by breaking the perspective rules of proportionality. For example, the person in front of the picture is smaller than the person in the back. This is intended to show that the person in the back is of greater importance (perhaps he is a sage or a spiritual teacher), The composition of trees in the form of an X, which is centered on the main character, adds to his significance. These techniques are being used in the modern graphic design.

Image:SharakuTwoActors.jpg| This wood print of the 18th century, a graphic work by the Japanese artist Toshusai Sharaku, is a two-dimensional compositional design. Japanese woodblock printing
Woodblock printing
Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper....

 and painting style have influenced the design of modern posters through the works of artists like Toulouse Lautrec.

Image:Figures in a cortege, tomb of Li Xian, Tang Dynasty.jpg|This Chinese wall painting of figures in a cortege, in the tomb of Li Xian
Li Xian
Li Xian , courtesy name Mingyun , formally Crown Prince Zhanghuai , named Li De from 672 to 674, was a crown prince of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. He was the sixth son of Emperor Gaozong, and the second son of his second wife Empress Wu...

, during Tang Dynasty in the 7th century uses a simplified composition, together with a particular use of a color scheme in order to create an intended impact. The artist uses two parallel lines created by the composition of soldiers' black boots and red hats and visually connects them by the linear composition of their rifles.

Image:Fish.JPG| This Vietnamese woodprint of the village of Dong Ho Painting
Dong Ho Painting
Dong Ho painting , full name Dong Ho folk woodcut painting is a genre of Vietnamese woodcut paintings originated from Dong Ho village in Bac Ninh Province, Vietnam...

 creates a specific aesthetic impact that can be attributed to its graphic design

Pottery

From ancient times graphic design has been used for decoration of pottery and ceramics


Image:NAMA Pélée, Achille & Chiron.jpg| This Greek lekythos
Lekythos
A lekythos is a type of Greek pottery used for storing oil , especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel. The lekythos was used for anointing dead bodies of unmarried men and many lekythoi are found in tombs. The images on lekythoi were often...

 (used for storing oil, especially olive oil) depicts the scene when Peleus
Peleus
In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...

 (left) entrusts his son Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

 (centre) to Centaur Chiron
Chiron
In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur among his brethren.-History:Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents...

 (right). White-ground black-figured by the Edinburgh Painter, ca. 500 BC. From Eretria
Eretria
Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...

.National Archaeological Museum of Athens
National Archaeological Museum of Athens
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek...

.

Image:Halafpottery.jpg| In the period 6500–5500 B.C., the farming society of Halaf in northern Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

 and Syria produced pottery that is among the finest in the Near East. The Halaf potters used different sources of clay from their neighbors and created interesting pottery.

Native American graphic art



Image:Jar p1070229.jpg| Art and religion are integral to all Native American indigenous peoples that come from many cultural groups and more than 500 tribal nations. They create designs that have been described as bold and imaginative graphic designs in both ceremonial and utilitarian objects. Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The museum, which opened in 1894, consists of over...



Image:Huaco Nazca.jpg| The Nazca
Nazca
Nazca is a system of valleys on the southern coast of Peru, and the name of the region's largest existing town in the Nazca Province. It is also the name applied to the Nazca culture that flourished in the area between 300 BC and AD 800...

 natives of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 are best known for their polychrome pottery, with colorful graphic designs.

Image:Featheredserpentnotchedplatevol2mississip86.png| Notched plate of stone from Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 region, with graphic design engraving of feathered rattlesnake.

Image:Maya vase Branly 70-1998-5-1 n1.jpg| A Maya
Maya art
Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya civilization, that took shape in the course the Preclassic period , and grew greater during the Classic period Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya...

 vase of the codex style, representing a lord of the underworld stripped of his clothes and headgear by the young Maize divinity, assisted by a midget and a hunchback. Terracotta, northern Petén (Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

), 7th-10th century.


Mayan and Aztec art

Graphics (from Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 Graphikos ) are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Mayan and Aztec art

Graphics (from Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 Graphikos ) are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Rock and cave art


Image:Chauvethorses.jpg | Drawing of horses in the Chauvet cave.
Image:Lascaux2.jpg| Drawing of a horse in the Lascaux cave.
Image:Bhimbetka rock paintng1.jpg| A rock drawing in Bhimbetka India.
Image:Kakadu-painting-hero.jpg| Aboriginal Rock Art, Ubirr Art Site, Kakadu National Park, Australia

Writing


Image:LantingXu.jpg| The Lantingji Xu, Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion
Orchid Pavilion Gathering
The Orchid Pavilion Gathering was a cultural and poetic event during the Six Dynasties era, in China. This event itself has a certain inherent and poetic interest in regards to the development of landscape poetry and the philosophical ideas of Zhuangzi...

 is the most famous work of Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi, created in year 353.

Image:Scribe's exercise tablet 1.jpg| Scribe's exercise tablet with hieratic text on wood, related to Dynasty XVIII, reign of Amenhotep I
Amenhotep I
Amenhotep I was the second Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. His reign is generally dated from 1526 to 1506 BC. He was born to Ahmose I and Ahmose-Nefertari, but had at least two elder brothers, Ahmose-ankh and Ahmose Sapair, and was not expected to inherit the throne...

, c. 1514-1493 BC. Text is an excerpt from The Instructions of Amenemhat II
Amenemhat II
Nubkhaure Amenemhat II was the third pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Not much is known about his reign. He ruled Egypt for 35 years from 1929 BC to 1895 BC and was the son of Senusret I through the latter's chief wife, Queen Nefru. His queen is not known; although recently a...

(Dynasty XII), and reads: "Be on your guard against all who are subordinate to you ... Trust no brother, know no friend, make no intimates."

Image:Title epilogue written by Wen Zhengming in Ni Zan's portrait by Qiu Ying.jpg| A Chinese traditional title epilogue written by Wen Zhengming
Wen Zhengming
Wen Zhengming was a leading Ming Dynasty painter, calligrapher, and scholar.Born in present-day Suzhou, he claimed to be a descendant of the Song Dynasty prime minister and patriot Wen Tianxiang. Wen’s family was originally from Hengyang, Hunan, where his family had established itself shortly...

 in Ni Zan
Ni Zan
Ni Zan was a Chinese painter during the Yuan Dynasty. Along with Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, and Wang Meng, he is considered to be one of the four "Late Yuan" masters....

's portrait by Qiu Ying
Qiu Ying
Qiu Ying was a Chinese painter who specialized in the gongbi brush technique.Qiu Ying's courtesy name was Shifu , and his pseudonym was Shizhou . He was born to a peasant family in Taicang and studied painting under Zhou Chen in Suzhou...

.(1470–1559)

Image:Egypt dauingevekten.jpg| The Papyrus of Ani
Papyrus of Ani
The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus manuscript written in cursive hieroglyphs and illustrated with color miniatures created in the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt ....

 is a version of the Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

 for the Scribe Ani. This vignette (small scene that illustrates the text) is Chapter for not letting Ani's heart create opposition against him in the God's Domain. (1240s BC).

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.


Image:LindisfarneFol27rIncipitMatt.jpg|A page from Lindisfarne Gospels
Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the British Library...

, c. 710
Image:Meister der Ada-Gruppe 001.jpg| The Ada Gospels
Ada Gospels
The Ada Gospels is a late eighth century or early ninth century Carolingian gospel book. The manuscript contains a dedication to Charlemagne's sister Ada, whence it gets its name. The manuscript is written on vellum in Carolingian minuscule. It measures 14.5 by 9.625 inches...

 are one of a group of manuscripts, known to modern scholars as the Ada School. Its illuminations include an elaborate initial page for the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 and portraits of Matthew
Matthew the Evangelist
Matthew the Evangelist was, according to the Bible, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the four Evangelists.-Identity:...

, Mark
Mark the Evangelist
Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....

 and Luke
Luke
Luke is a male given name, and less commonly, a surname.The name Luke is derived from the Latin name , from an Ancient Greek , meaning "man from Lucania". The earliest known recording of the name is from the Bible, The Gospel of Luke, which was written around AD 70 to 90, and it is from here...

. Late 8th century
Image:KellsDecoratedInitial.jpg| A graphic decoration in the Book of Kells
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...

, c. 800
Image:BookOfDurrowBeginMarkGospel.jpg| Opening page of Book of Durrow
Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is a 7th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book in the Insular style. It was probably created between 650 and 700, in Northumbria in Northern England, where Lindisfarne or Durham would be the likely candidates, or on the island of Iona in the Scottish Inner Hebrides...

, 7th century

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Image:Qur'an folio 11th century kufic.jpg| A page from a Persian Quran in 11th century.
Image:AndalusQuran.JPG| Graphic art in an Egyptian Quran of 9-10th century.
Image:Large Koran.jpg| An Iranian Quran of 15th century found in Uzbekistan.
Image:Abbasid Koran folio from Egypt.jpg| A Quran with Kuffi Alphabeth of 12th century.

Calligraphy


Image:Schedel register.jpg | Many believe that calligraphy adds a mystical dimension to a writing. Such mysticism appears to be consistent with the feeling that a religious text tries to convey. This is why to create a spritual feeling many religious texts use calligraphy.

Image:Zhao Meng Fu Autumn Colors Part2.jpg|Art of calligraphy in China goes back to 2000 BC. Chinese calligraphy was used to communicate the philosophical ideas of Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

 and Hundred Schools of Thought
Hundred Schools of Thought
The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophers and schools that flourished from 770 to 221 BC during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period , an era of great cultural and intellectual expansion in China...

 (諸子百家; zhūzǐ bǎijiā")
Image:Taigado gafu0.jpg|Calligraphy entered Japan in the third century BC from China during its states wars. Japanese used calligraphy to write their haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

s on decorative banners.

Maps


Image:Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World). Page 2 Hand-copied manuscript map Korea mid-eighteenth century.jpg|This is Page 2 of a hand-copied manuscript map from Korea, Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World), mid-eighteenth century.
Image:Reiner Ottens. Atlas maior cvm generales omnivm.jpg|This is page 2 and 3 of a hand-colored engraving of Reiner Ottens' Atlas maior cvm generales omnivm.Amsterdam 1729. The constellations on this chart are elaborately represented by figures from classical antiquity. In the corners of the chart are illustrations of four European observatories, including that of the noted sixteenth-century astronomer Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...

 (1546-1601).

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.


Image:Chinese Playing Cards mahjong 1.jpg|These four chromolithograph Chinese cards from Mah Jong pack, c.1910, depict characters from the 'Story of the Water Margin'. There are 108 cards in the suit. The origin of Mah Jong has been traced to Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

 who had developed the game about 500 BC. The appearance of the game in various Chinese provinces coincides with Confucius' travels at the time he was teaching his new doctrines. Confucius was said to be fond of birds, which would explain the name Mah Jong (Hemp Bird).

Image: Card designs from the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt c. 1500.jpg| These are Card designs from the Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

 Sultanate of Egypt. c. 1500. According to a passage in Ibn Taghri Birdi's HISTORY OF EGYPT, 1382-1469 A.D., the future sultan al-Malik al-Mu'ayyad won a large sum of money in a game of cards. In the Islamic empire playing cards the suits were coins, cups, swords, and polo sticks.

Image:Suit Systems in different European countries.gif|When the Islamic empire playing cards were introduced to Italy, the batons (which were in fact the empire's polo sticks) were changed into smooth rods with decorated ends. In Spain and Portugal, they became rough cudgels.

Image:Ober of Acorns and Unter of leaves from a Nurnberger pack.gif|During the fifteenth century, Germans introduced wooden blocks printing technique to produce playing cards. They could quickly export these cards throughout Europe because of their lower costs. The substitution of wood blocking and hand coloring with copper plate engraving during the sixteenth century was the next significant innovation in the manufacturing of playing cards. The mass printing of playing cards was revolutionized with the introduction of color lithography in the early nineteen century.


German suits


Image:The extinct Ancbacher Nurenberg Design by F.X Scmid.JPG|The extinct Ancbacher Nuremberg design (by F.X Schmid).
Image:German Single-headed Schwerterkarte (by SA).JPG|German single-headed Schwerterkarte playing cards,(by SA)
Image:A northern Germany suit design by ASS.JPG|File:A northern Germany suit design of playing cards (by ASS).
Image:German Art Nouveau playing cards printed in Attenburg 1900.jpg|German art nouveau playing cards printed in Attenburg, 1900.

Selected European suits


Image:Traditinal English Courts 1827.gif|Traditional English playing cards, James Hardy, London 1827. and Germany C 1810
Image:Latvian playing cards designed by Arturs Dubrus in 1942.jpg|Latvian playing cards designed by Arturs Dubrus in 1942.
Image:Tarot cards from France and Germany C 1810.jpg|Tarot cards from France and Germany C 1810
Image:Soviet playing card with Mayan Image, 1960s copy.jpg|Russian playing cards with Mayan Image, 1960s.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Image:Meister von Nerezi 001.jpg|Frescoes in Nerezi near Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...

 (1164). The Byzantine graphic art emerges out of artists attempt to convey divine spiritual statements. The graphic represents the Christian narrative of salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

 in stylized two dimensional elongated figures.

Image:Meister von San Vitale in Ravenna 003.jpg|Mosaic from Basilica of San Vitale
Basilica of San Vitale
The Church of San Vitale — styled an "ecclesiastical basilica" in the Roman Catholic Church, though it is not of architectural basilica form — is a church in Ravenna, Italy, one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine Art and architecture in western Europe...

 in Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

, Italy, showing the Emperor Justinian and Bishop Maximian of Ravenna surrounded by clerics and soldiers. Here the graphic statement conveys the unification of the church and state.

Image:Meister der Demetrius-Kirche in Saloniki 002.jpg|Mosaic from the church of Hagios Demetrios in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

, late 7th or early 8th century, showing St. Demetrios with donors. Artists used highly decorative, symbolic, and flattened graphical representations of Christian saints by setting small pieces of colored glass into the mortar of the church walls at different angles to catch the light. An heavenly atmosphere was created by using gold backgrounds together with haloed figures.

Image:Virgin Psychosostria Ohrid14th century.jpg|Two-sided icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

 with the Virgin Psychosostria (saver of souls) and the Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...

.Byzantine (Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

), early 14th century. One of the most important genres of Byzantine graphic art was the icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

, an stylized image of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint, used as an object of veneration in Orthodox churches and private homes alike.


Miniatures


Image:Henry1.jpg|In this miniature painting of king Henry I of England
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

, from illuminated Chronicle of Matthew, Paris, (1236-1259), now in British Library, many of the principles of the modern graphic design is followed. The 13th century paintings with their bright and golden colors were influenced by the Byzantine art. After the crusaders' sack of Constantinople in 1204, many works of Byzantine art entered and influenced Western Europe.

Image:Layla_and_Majnun.jpg| ٔIn this Iranian miniature
Persian miniature
A Persian miniature is a small painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a muraqqa. The techniques are broadly comparable to the Western and Byzantine traditions of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts...

, based on the tragedy of two lovers Laily and Majnoon by Nizami Ganjavi,(second half of the 16th century) the broken perspective, together with utilization of text and design is used to communicate the message of the story.
Image:Twolovers.jpg|In this 16th century miniature of Reza Abbasi
Reza Abbasi
Riza Abbasi, Riza yi-Abbasi or Reza-e Abbasi, رضا عباسی in Persian, usually "Riza" or Reza Abbasi also Aqa Riza or Āqā Riżā Kāshānī was the leading Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid period, spending most of his career working for Shah Abbas I...

 the simplicity of composition and the harmony of color scheme are consistent with the minimalist principles of the modern graphic design.

Image:Indischer Maler um 1710 001.jpg| The Iranian graphic designers of Indian court Mir Sid Ali, and Abdol-Sanad Khan in the second half of the 16th century influenced the Indian miniature paintings. In this 18th century miniature the impact of this influence can be detected.


Asian paintings: China, Japan, and Vietnam



Image:Ma Lin 001.jpg| The study of graphic design technique and the drawing style in this early 13th century work of the Chinese painter Ma Lin
Ma Lin
Ma Lin is a fictional character in the Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. He ranks 67th of the 108 Liangshan heroes and 31st of the 72 Earthly Fiends. He is nicknamed "Iron Flute Deity".-Background:...

 is revealing. The artist conveys his message by breaking the perspective rules of proportionality. For example, the person in front of the picture is smaller than the person in the back. This is intended to show that the person in the back is of greater importance (perhaps he is a sage or a spiritual teacher), The composition of trees in the form of an X, which is centered on the main character, adds to his significance. These techniques are being used in the modern graphic design.

Image:SharakuTwoActors.jpg| This wood print of the 18th century, a graphic work by the Japanese artist Toshusai Sharaku, is a two-dimensional compositional design. Japanese woodblock printing
Woodblock printing
Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper....

 and painting style have influenced the design of modern posters through the works of artists like Toulouse Lautrec.

Image:Figures in a cortege, tomb of Li Xian, Tang Dynasty.jpg|This Chinese wall painting of figures in a cortege, in the tomb of Li Xian
Li Xian
Li Xian , courtesy name Mingyun , formally Crown Prince Zhanghuai , named Li De from 672 to 674, was a crown prince of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. He was the sixth son of Emperor Gaozong, and the second son of his second wife Empress Wu...

, during Tang Dynasty in the 7th century uses a simplified composition, together with a particular use of a color scheme in order to create an intended impact. The artist uses two parallel lines created by the composition of soldiers' black boots and red hats and visually connects them by the linear composition of their rifles.

Image:Fish.JPG| This Vietnamese woodprint of the village of Dong Ho Painting
Dong Ho Painting
Dong Ho painting , full name Dong Ho folk woodcut painting is a genre of Vietnamese woodcut paintings originated from Dong Ho village in Bac Ninh Province, Vietnam...

 creates a specific aesthetic impact that can be attributed to its graphic design

Pottery

From ancient times graphic design has been used for decoration of pottery and ceramics


Image:NAMA Pélée, Achille & Chiron.jpg| This Greek lekythos
Lekythos
A lekythos is a type of Greek pottery used for storing oil , especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel. The lekythos was used for anointing dead bodies of unmarried men and many lekythoi are found in tombs. The images on lekythoi were often...

 (used for storing oil, especially olive oil) depicts the scene when Peleus
Peleus
In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...

 (left) entrusts his son Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

 (centre) to Centaur Chiron
Chiron
In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur among his brethren.-History:Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents...

 (right). White-ground black-figured by the Edinburgh Painter, ca. 500 BC. From Eretria
Eretria
Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...

.National Archaeological Museum of Athens
National Archaeological Museum of Athens
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek...

.

Image:Halafpottery.jpg| In the period 6500–5500 B.C., the farming society of Halaf in northern Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

 and Syria produced pottery that is among the finest in the Near East. The Halaf potters used different sources of clay from their neighbors and created interesting pottery.

Native American graphic art



Image:Jar p1070229.jpg| Art and religion are integral to all Native American indigenous peoples that come from many cultural groups and more than 500 tribal nations. They create designs that have been described as bold and imaginative graphic designs in both ceremonial and utilitarian objects. Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The museum, which opened in 1894, consists of over...



Image:Huaco Nazca.jpg| The Nazca
Nazca
Nazca is a system of valleys on the southern coast of Peru, and the name of the region's largest existing town in the Nazca Province. It is also the name applied to the Nazca culture that flourished in the area between 300 BC and AD 800...

 natives of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 are best known for their polychrome pottery, with colorful graphic designs.

Image:Featheredserpentnotchedplatevol2mississip86.png| Notched plate of stone from Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 region, with graphic design engraving of feathered rattlesnake.

Image:Maya vase Branly 70-1998-5-1 n1.jpg| A Maya
Maya art
Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya civilization, that took shape in the course the Preclassic period , and grew greater during the Classic period Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya...

 vase of the codex style, representing a lord of the underworld stripped of his clothes and headgear by the young Maize divinity, assisted by a midget and a hunchback. Terracotta, northern Petén (Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

), 7th-10th century.


Mayan and Aztec art

Graphics (from Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 Graphikos ) are the production of visual statements on some surface, such as a wall, canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, computer screen, paper, stone or landscape. It includes everything that relates to creation of signs
Signs
Signs is the plural of sign. See sign .Signs may also refer to:*Signs , a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan*Signs , a journal of women's studies...

, charts, logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

, graphs
Graphics
Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...

, drawings, line art
Line art
Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

, symbols, geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 designs and so on. Graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 is the art or profession of combining text, pictures, and ideas in advertisements, publication, or website. At its widest definition, it therefore includes the whole history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...

, although painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and other aspects of the subject are more usually treated as art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

History

Hundreds of graphic designs of animals by the primitive people in the Chauvet Cave
Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River...

, in the south of France, which were drawn more than 30,000 BC, as well as similar designs in the Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...

 cave of France that were drawn more than 14,000 BC, or the designs of the primitive hunters in the Bhimbetka rock shelters in India that were drawn more than 7,000 BC, and the Aboriginal Rock Art, in the Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

 of Australia, and many other rock or cave paintings in other parts of the world show that graphics have a very long history which is shared among humanity. This history together with the history of writing which was emerged in 3000-4000 BC are at the foundation of the Graphic Art.

Rock and cave art


Image:Chauvethorses.jpg | Drawing of horses in the Chauvet cave.
Image:Lascaux2.jpg| Drawing of a horse in the Lascaux cave.
Image:Bhimbetka rock paintng1.jpg| A rock drawing in Bhimbetka India.
Image:Kakadu-painting-hero.jpg| Aboriginal Rock Art, Ubirr Art Site, Kakadu National Park, Australia

Writing


Image:LantingXu.jpg| The Lantingji Xu, Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion
Orchid Pavilion Gathering
The Orchid Pavilion Gathering was a cultural and poetic event during the Six Dynasties era, in China. This event itself has a certain inherent and poetic interest in regards to the development of landscape poetry and the philosophical ideas of Zhuangzi...

 is the most famous work of Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi, created in year 353.

Image:Scribe's exercise tablet 1.jpg| Scribe's exercise tablet with hieratic text on wood, related to Dynasty XVIII, reign of Amenhotep I
Amenhotep I
Amenhotep I was the second Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. His reign is generally dated from 1526 to 1506 BC. He was born to Ahmose I and Ahmose-Nefertari, but had at least two elder brothers, Ahmose-ankh and Ahmose Sapair, and was not expected to inherit the throne...

, c. 1514-1493 BC. Text is an excerpt from The Instructions of Amenemhat II
Amenemhat II
Nubkhaure Amenemhat II was the third pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Not much is known about his reign. He ruled Egypt for 35 years from 1929 BC to 1895 BC and was the son of Senusret I through the latter's chief wife, Queen Nefru. His queen is not known; although recently a...

(Dynasty XII), and reads: "Be on your guard against all who are subordinate to you ... Trust no brother, know no friend, make no intimates."

Image:Title epilogue written by Wen Zhengming in Ni Zan's portrait by Qiu Ying.jpg| A Chinese traditional title epilogue written by Wen Zhengming
Wen Zhengming
Wen Zhengming was a leading Ming Dynasty painter, calligrapher, and scholar.Born in present-day Suzhou, he claimed to be a descendant of the Song Dynasty prime minister and patriot Wen Tianxiang. Wen’s family was originally from Hengyang, Hunan, where his family had established itself shortly...

 in Ni Zan
Ni Zan
Ni Zan was a Chinese painter during the Yuan Dynasty. Along with Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, and Wang Meng, he is considered to be one of the four "Late Yuan" masters....

's portrait by Qiu Ying
Qiu Ying
Qiu Ying was a Chinese painter who specialized in the gongbi brush technique.Qiu Ying's courtesy name was Shifu , and his pseudonym was Shizhou . He was born to a peasant family in Taicang and studied painting under Zhou Chen in Suzhou...

.(1470–1559)

Image:Egypt dauingevekten.jpg| The Papyrus of Ani
Papyrus of Ani
The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus manuscript written in cursive hieroglyphs and illustrated with color miniatures created in the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt ....

 is a version of the Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

 for the Scribe Ani. This vignette (small scene that illustrates the text) is Chapter for not letting Ani's heart create opposition against him in the God's Domain. (1240s BC).

Use in books

Many books in the classical world were illustrated, although only a handful of original examples survive. Medieval religious illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

s have used graphics extensively. Among these books are the Gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

s of Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

, created in the monasteries of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

  The graphics in these books are influenced by the Animal style
Animal style
Animal style art is characterized by its emphasis on animal and bird motifs, and the term describes an approach to decoration which existed from China to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period...

 of the "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

" peoples of Northern Europe, with much use of interlace
Interlace (visual arts)
In the visual arts, interlace is a decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space. Islamic interlace patterns and Celtic knotwork share similar patterns, suggesting a...

 and geometric decoration.


Image:LindisfarneFol27rIncipitMatt.jpg|A page from Lindisfarne Gospels
Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the British Library...

, c. 710
Image:Meister der Ada-Gruppe 001.jpg| The Ada Gospels
Ada Gospels
The Ada Gospels is a late eighth century or early ninth century Carolingian gospel book. The manuscript contains a dedication to Charlemagne's sister Ada, whence it gets its name. The manuscript is written on vellum in Carolingian minuscule. It measures 14.5 by 9.625 inches...

 are one of a group of manuscripts, known to modern scholars as the Ada School. Its illuminations include an elaborate initial page for the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 and portraits of Matthew
Matthew the Evangelist
Matthew the Evangelist was, according to the Bible, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the four Evangelists.-Identity:...

, Mark
Mark the Evangelist
Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....

 and Luke
Luke
Luke is a male given name, and less commonly, a surname.The name Luke is derived from the Latin name , from an Ancient Greek , meaning "man from Lucania". The earliest known recording of the name is from the Bible, The Gospel of Luke, which was written around AD 70 to 90, and it is from here...

. Late 8th century
Image:KellsDecoratedInitial.jpg| A graphic decoration in the Book of Kells
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...

, c. 800
Image:BookOfDurrowBeginMarkGospel.jpg| Opening page of Book of Durrow
Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is a 7th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book in the Insular style. It was probably created between 650 and 700, in Northumbria in Northern England, where Lindisfarne or Durham would be the likely candidates, or on the island of Iona in the Scottish Inner Hebrides...

, 7th century

The Qur'an

In Islamic countries graphic designs were used to decorate their holy book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. Muslim scribes used black ink and golden paper to write utilizing an angled alphabet, called Kuffi. Such writings appeared in 8th century, and reached their apex in 10th century. Later on decoration of margin, page and other graphic techniques were added in order to beautify the book. In 12th century, the Naskh alphabet was invented, which instead of angled lines used curves. Other styles such as Mohaghegh, Reyhan, Sols, Reghaa, and Toghii was added later on

Image:Qur'an folio 11th century kufic.jpg| A page from a Persian Quran in 11th century.
Image:AndalusQuran.JPG| Graphic art in an Egyptian Quran of 9-10th century.
Image:Large Koran.jpg| An Iranian Quran of 15th century found in Uzbekistan.
Image:Abbasid Koran folio from Egypt.jpg| A Quran with Kuffi Alphabeth of 12th century.

Calligraphy


Image:Schedel register.jpg | Many believe that calligraphy adds a mystical dimension to a writing. Such mysticism appears to be consistent with the feeling that a religious text tries to convey. This is why to create a spritual feeling many religious texts use calligraphy.

Image:Zhao Meng Fu Autumn Colors Part2.jpg|Art of calligraphy in China goes back to 2000 BC. Chinese calligraphy was used to communicate the philosophical ideas of Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

 and Hundred Schools of Thought
Hundred Schools of Thought
The Hundred Schools of Thought were philosophers and schools that flourished from 770 to 221 BC during the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period , an era of great cultural and intellectual expansion in China...

 (諸子百家; zhūzǐ bǎijiā")
Image:Taigado gafu0.jpg|Calligraphy entered Japan in the third century BC from China during its states wars. Japanese used calligraphy to write their haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

s on decorative banners.

Maps


Image:Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World). Page 2 Hand-copied manuscript map Korea mid-eighteenth century.jpg|This is Page 2 of a hand-copied manuscript map from Korea, Chonhado (World Map) from Chonha Chido (Map of the World), mid-eighteenth century.
Image:Reiner Ottens. Atlas maior cvm generales omnivm.jpg|This is page 2 and 3 of a hand-colored engraving of Reiner Ottens' Atlas maior cvm generales omnivm.Amsterdam 1729. The constellations on this chart are elaborately represented by figures from classical antiquity. In the corners of the chart are illustrations of four European observatories, including that of the noted sixteenth-century astronomer Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...

 (1546-1601).

Playing cards

It is believed that playing cards have been invented in China. Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...

 Province). Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.


Image:Chinese Playing Cards mahjong 1.jpg|These four chromolithograph Chinese cards from Mah Jong pack, c.1910, depict characters from the 'Story of the Water Margin'. There are 108 cards in the suit. The origin of Mah Jong has been traced to Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....

 who had developed the game about 500 BC. The appearance of the game in various Chinese provinces coincides with Confucius' travels at the time he was teaching his new doctrines. Confucius was said to be fond of birds, which would explain the name Mah Jong (Hemp Bird).

Image: Card designs from the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt c. 1500.jpg| These are Card designs from the Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

 Sultanate of Egypt. c. 1500. According to a passage in Ibn Taghri Birdi's HISTORY OF EGYPT, 1382-1469 A.D., the future sultan al-Malik al-Mu'ayyad won a large sum of money in a game of cards. In the Islamic empire playing cards the suits were coins, cups, swords, and polo sticks.

Image:Suit Systems in different European countries.gif|When the Islamic empire playing cards were introduced to Italy, the batons (which were in fact the empire's polo sticks) were changed into smooth rods with decorated ends. In Spain and Portugal, they became rough cudgels.

Image:Ober of Acorns and Unter of leaves from a Nurnberger pack.gif|During the fifteenth century, Germans introduced wooden blocks printing technique to produce playing cards. They could quickly export these cards throughout Europe because of their lower costs. The substitution of wood blocking and hand coloring with copper plate engraving during the sixteenth century was the next significant innovation in the manufacturing of playing cards. The mass printing of playing cards was revolutionized with the introduction of color lithography in the early nineteen century.


German suits


Image:The extinct Ancbacher Nurenberg Design by F.X Scmid.JPG|The extinct Ancbacher Nuremberg design (by F.X Schmid).
Image:German Single-headed Schwerterkarte (by SA).JPG|German single-headed Schwerterkarte playing cards,(by SA)
Image:A northern Germany suit design by ASS.JPG|File:A northern Germany suit design of playing cards (by ASS).
Image:German Art Nouveau playing cards printed in Attenburg 1900.jpg|German art nouveau playing cards printed in Attenburg, 1900.

Selected European suits


Image:Traditinal English Courts 1827.gif|Traditional English playing cards, James Hardy, London 1827. and Germany C 1810
Image:Latvian playing cards designed by Arturs Dubrus in 1942.jpg|Latvian playing cards designed by Arturs Dubrus in 1942.
Image:Tarot cards from France and Germany C 1810.jpg|Tarot cards from France and Germany C 1810
Image:Soviet playing card with Mayan Image, 1960s copy.jpg|Russian playing cards with Mayan Image, 1960s.

Byzantine art

The Byzantine Empire began when the Emperor Constantine moved the headquarters of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

 (present day Istanbul) which he renamed Constantinople. The Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, although marked by periodic revivals of a classical aesthetic of the art of the Roman empire and ancient Greek, was above all marked by the development of a new aesthetic which Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski
Josef Strzygowski was a German art historian known for his theory on the influence of Early Christian Armenian architecture on the early Medieval architecture of Europe, outlined in his book, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa...

 viewed it as a product of "oriental" influences. The subject matter of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 was primarily religious and imperial. Byzantine art is more spiritual in content (figures presented as representations of the soul rather than the body) and yet more "worldly" in form with a show of gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stones.

Image:Meister von Nerezi 001.jpg|Frescoes in Nerezi near Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...

 (1164). The Byzantine graphic art emerges out of artists attempt to convey divine spiritual statements. The graphic represents the Christian narrative of salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

 in stylized two dimensional elongated figures.

Image:Meister von San Vitale in Ravenna 003.jpg|Mosaic from Basilica of San Vitale
Basilica of San Vitale
The Church of San Vitale — styled an "ecclesiastical basilica" in the Roman Catholic Church, though it is not of architectural basilica form — is a church in Ravenna, Italy, one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine Art and architecture in western Europe...

 in Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

, Italy, showing the Emperor Justinian and Bishop Maximian of Ravenna surrounded by clerics and soldiers. Here the graphic statement conveys the unification of the church and state.

Image:Meister der Demetrius-Kirche in Saloniki 002.jpg|Mosaic from the church of Hagios Demetrios in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

, late 7th or early 8th century, showing St. Demetrios with donors. Artists used highly decorative, symbolic, and flattened graphical representations of Christian saints by setting small pieces of colored glass into the mortar of the church walls at different angles to catch the light. An heavenly atmosphere was created by using gold backgrounds together with haloed figures.

Image:Virgin Psychosostria Ohrid14th century.jpg|Two-sided icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

 with the Virgin Psychosostria (saver of souls) and the Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...

.Byzantine (Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

), early 14th century. One of the most important genres of Byzantine graphic art was the icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

, an stylized image of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint, used as an object of veneration in Orthodox churches and private homes alike.


Miniatures


Image:Henry1.jpg|In this miniature painting of king Henry I of England
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

, from illuminated Chronicle of Matthew, Paris, (1236-1259), now in British Library, many of the principles of the modern graphic design is followed. The 13th century paintings with their bright and golden colors were influenced by the Byzantine art. After the crusaders' sack of Constantinople in 1204, many works of Byzantine art entered and influenced Western Europe.

Image:Layla_and_Majnun.jpg| ٔIn this Iranian miniature
Persian miniature
A Persian miniature is a small painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a muraqqa. The techniques are broadly comparable to the Western and Byzantine traditions of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts...

, based on the tragedy of two lovers Laily and Majnoon by Nizami Ganjavi,(second half of the 16th century) the broken perspective, together with utilization of text and design is used to communicate the message of the story.
Image:Twolovers.jpg|In this 16th century miniature of Reza Abbasi
Reza Abbasi
Riza Abbasi, Riza yi-Abbasi or Reza-e Abbasi, رضا عباسی in Persian, usually "Riza" or Reza Abbasi also Aqa Riza or Āqā Riżā Kāshānī was the leading Persian miniaturist of the Isfahan School during the later Safavid period, spending most of his career working for Shah Abbas I...

 the simplicity of composition and the harmony of color scheme are consistent with the minimalist principles of the modern graphic design.

Image:Indischer Maler um 1710 001.jpg| The Iranian graphic designers of Indian court Mir Sid Ali, and Abdol-Sanad Khan in the second half of the 16th century influenced the Indian miniature paintings. In this 18th century miniature the impact of this influence can be detected.


Asian paintings: China, Japan, and Vietnam



Image:Ma Lin 001.jpg| The study of graphic design technique and the drawing style in this early 13th century work of the Chinese painter Ma Lin
Ma Lin
Ma Lin is a fictional character in the Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. He ranks 67th of the 108 Liangshan heroes and 31st of the 72 Earthly Fiends. He is nicknamed "Iron Flute Deity".-Background:...

 is revealing. The artist conveys his message by breaking the perspective rules of proportionality. For example, the person in front of the picture is smaller than the person in the back. This is intended to show that the person in the back is of greater importance (perhaps he is a sage or a spiritual teacher), The composition of trees in the form of an X, which is centered on the main character, adds to his significance. These techniques are being used in the modern graphic design.

Image:SharakuTwoActors.jpg| This wood print of the 18th century, a graphic work by the Japanese artist Toshusai Sharaku, is a two-dimensional compositional design. Japanese woodblock printing
Woodblock printing
Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper....

 and painting style have influenced the design of modern posters through the works of artists like Toulouse Lautrec.

Image:Figures in a cortege, tomb of Li Xian, Tang Dynasty.jpg|This Chinese wall painting of figures in a cortege, in the tomb of Li Xian
Li Xian
Li Xian , courtesy name Mingyun , formally Crown Prince Zhanghuai , named Li De from 672 to 674, was a crown prince of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. He was the sixth son of Emperor Gaozong, and the second son of his second wife Empress Wu...

, during Tang Dynasty in the 7th century uses a simplified composition, together with a particular use of a color scheme in order to create an intended impact. The artist uses two parallel lines created by the composition of soldiers' black boots and red hats and visually connects them by the linear composition of their rifles.

Image:Fish.JPG| This Vietnamese woodprint of the village of Dong Ho Painting
Dong Ho Painting
Dong Ho painting , full name Dong Ho folk woodcut painting is a genre of Vietnamese woodcut paintings originated from Dong Ho village in Bac Ninh Province, Vietnam...

 creates a specific aesthetic impact that can be attributed to its graphic design

Pottery

From ancient times graphic design has been used for decoration of pottery and ceramics


Image:NAMA Pélée, Achille & Chiron.jpg| This Greek lekythos
Lekythos
A lekythos is a type of Greek pottery used for storing oil , especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel. The lekythos was used for anointing dead bodies of unmarried men and many lekythoi are found in tombs. The images on lekythoi were often...

 (used for storing oil, especially olive oil) depicts the scene when Peleus
Peleus
In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...

 (left) entrusts his son Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

 (centre) to Centaur Chiron
Chiron
In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur among his brethren.-History:Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents...

 (right). White-ground black-figured by the Edinburgh Painter, ca. 500 BC. From Eretria
Eretria
Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...

.National Archaeological Museum of Athens
National Archaeological Museum of Athens
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek...

.

Image:Halafpottery.jpg| In the period 6500–5500 B.C., the farming society of Halaf in northern Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

 and Syria produced pottery that is among the finest in the Near East. The Halaf potters used different sources of clay from their neighbors and created interesting pottery.

Native American graphic art



Image:Jar p1070229.jpg| Art and religion are integral to all Native American indigenous peoples that come from many cultural groups and more than 500 tribal nations. They create designs that have been described as bold and imaginative graphic designs in both ceremonial and utilitarian objects. Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The museum, which opened in 1894, consists of over...



Image:Huaco Nazca.jpg| The Nazca
Nazca
Nazca is a system of valleys on the southern coast of Peru, and the name of the region's largest existing town in the Nazca Province. It is also the name applied to the Nazca culture that flourished in the area between 300 BC and AD 800...

 natives of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 are best known for their polychrome pottery, with colorful graphic designs.

Image:Featheredserpentnotchedplatevol2mississip86.png| Notched plate of stone from Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 region, with graphic design engraving of feathered rattlesnake.

Image:Maya vase Branly 70-1998-5-1 n1.jpg| A Maya
Maya art
Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya civilization, that took shape in the course the Preclassic period , and grew greater during the Classic period Maya art, here taken to mean the visual arts, is the artistic style typical of the Maya...

 vase of the codex style, representing a lord of the underworld stripped of his clothes and headgear by the young Maize divinity, assisted by a midget and a hunchback. Terracotta, northern Petén (Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

), 7th-10th century.


Mayan and Aztec art


Image:Borgia 53 bottom left.jpg| The Codex Borgia
Codex Borgia
The Codex Borgia is a Mesoamerican ritual and divinatory manuscript. It is generally believed to have been written before the Spanish conquest of Mexico, somewhere within what is now today southern or western Puebla...

, now in the Apostolic Library of the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

, is one of the few surviving graphic art manuscripts of Aztecs. It is believed that it is from the central Mexican highlands near Puebla
Puebla
Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

. This is an area which was under Aztec rule at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Spanish conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...

.
Image:Codex Borbonicus, p11 trecena13.PNG|The Codex Borbonicus
Codex Borbonicus
The Codex Borbonicus is an Aztec codex written by Aztec priests shortly before or after the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The codex is named after the Palais Bourbon in France. It is held at the Bibliothèque de l'Assemblée Nationale in Paris...

 is a codex written by Aztec priests shortly before or after the Spanish conquest of Mexico
Spanish conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...

. Like all pre-Columbian codices, it was originally entirely pictorial in nature, although some Spanish descriptions were later added.
Image:Dresden Codex p09.jpg|The Dresden Codex
Dresden Codex
The Dresden Codex, also known as the Codex Dresdensis, is a pre-Columbian Maya book of the eleventh or twelfth century of the Yucatecan Maya in Chichén Itzá. The Maya codex is believed to be a copy of an original text of some three or four hundred years earlier...

  is an ancient Mayan
Maya script
The Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs or Maya hieroglyphs, is the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered...

 book of the eleventh or twelfth century of the Yucatecan
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...

 Maya. It is a highly important work of art. Many sections are ritualistic (including so-called 'almanacs'), others are of an astrological nature (eclipse
Eclipse
An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, either by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer...

s, the Venus cycles). It was probably written just before the Spanish conquest.

Image:SBmural.jpg|The Maya civilization
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

 is noted for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. At San Bartolo
San Bartolo (Maya site)
San Bartolo is a small pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site located in the Department of Petén in northern Guatemala, northeast of Tikal and roughly fifty miles from the nearest settlement...

, located in the Department of Petén in northern Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

, murals dating from 100 CE depict the myth of the Maya maize god
Maya religion
The traditional Maya religion of western Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico is a southeastern variant of Mesoamerican religion. As is the case with many other contemporary Mesoamerican religions, it results from centuries of symbiosis with Roman Catholicism...

; the colours are subtle and muted, the style, although very early, is already fully developed.The murals depicts the Maya creation Myth
Maya mythology
Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Mayan tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles...

 as described in the Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...

.

African art


Image:Ethiopian painting Stoning of a Martyr.jpg|This detail from an Ethiopian painting with its line drawing, and coloring scheme anticipates many of the techniques used in modern posters. (end of 17th century).
Image:Igbo male figure.jpg| The use of graphic design with its broad and bold application of color that reinforces the strength of the carving is a feature of African art
African art
African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of people, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African...

 which has been described by some researchers as striking. Among the Igbo
Igbo people
Igbo people, also referred to as the Ibo, Ebo, Eboans or Heebo are an ethnic group living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects; today, a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism...

, such figures are sculpted by men and painted by women.

Image:Ceramic Kabyle peoples double vessel (19th century).jpg|Handbuilt pottery made by women, including those from the Kabyle
Kabyle people
The Kabyle people are the largest homogeneous Algerian ethno-cultural and linguistical community and the largest nation in North Africa to be considered exclusively Berber. Their traditional homeland is Kabylie in the north of Algeria, one hundred miles east of Algiers...

, an older, probably indigenous tradition, dates back 2000 years before the birth of Christ. The vessel depicted here originates from earlier prototypes. To this day, Kabyle women coil and decorate pottery with painted geometric designs for their own household use and for sale.

Image: TsogoMask.jpg| The disconnect between the divisions of the painted surface of this mask and the underlying carved form is an aspect of African art that has been described as striking and first entranced Western audiences. This is a mask created by Tsogo peoples of Ogowe River region in Gabon
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...

. (Late 19th to early 20th century).

Mondrian's minimalism revolution

Less is more. That is the basic premise of a minimalist color poster design. The Dutch painter Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...

 in the years 1920-21 courageously introduced the style of minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

 in painting. His simple geometric compositions, together with the use of only three basic colors, blue, yellow, and red, in combination with black and white created
a new venue for the graphic designers. He demonstrated that with simple relocation of these colors, and experiment with the proportionality of various square surfaces one can achieve extremely different ambiances and various feelings. For the graphic designers who intend to convey a message with a minimum interference from the extraneous elements his experiment in minimalism was a valuable gift.

Communication


Image:Esculaap.svg|Many medical organizations use the rod of Asclepius
Rod of Asclepius
The rod of Asclepius , also known as the asklepian, is an ancient symbol associated with astrology, the Greek god Asclepius, and with medicine and healing. It consists of a serpent entwined around a staff. The name of the symbol derives from its early and widespread association with Asclepius, the...

 as their logo, since it symbolizes the healing arts. This kind of sign is called pictogram
Pictogram
A pictograph, also called pictogram or pictogramme is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearance.Pictography is a...

 The main advantage of a pictogram is that one does not need to be able to read or to understand a particular language in order to be able to understand the information it conveys.
Image:Stop sign MUTCD.svg|This is the STOP sign in many European countries. These type of signs are called phonogram Obviously one needs to be able to read the sign, and to be familiar with the language in order to understand its message.

Image:1 2 77 1.svg|This is the Swedish traffic sign for no parking zone . The red circle with a diagonal line crossing it coveys the idea of "Not Allowed", and is called an ideogram
Ideogram
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.Examples of...

.


A rebus
Rebus
A rebus is an allusional device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. It was a favourite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames, for example in its basic form 3 salmon fish to denote the name "Salmon"...

 (Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

: "by things") is a kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words, such as "T,4,2" instead of "tea for two". In 1977, the New York State Department of Commerce recruited Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...

, a productive graphic designer to work on a marketing campaign for New York State. Glaser created this rebus-style icon which became a major success and has continued to be sold for years. Rebus has played an important role in creation of alphabets.

Heraldry

Heraldry is the practice of designing and displaying coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

 and heraldic badge
Heraldic badge
A heraldic badge is an emblem or personal device worn as a badge to indicate allegiance to or the property of an individual or family. Medieval forms are usually called a livery badge, and also a cognizance...

 and is rather common among all nations. For example Romans used eagle as their coat of arms, French used fleur de lis, and Persians used the sign of their god, Ahura Mazda. Historically, it has been variously described as "the shorthand of history" and "the floral border in the garden of history.". It comes from the Germanic compound *harja-waldaz, "army commander". The origins of heraldry lie in the need to distinguish participants in combat when their faces were hidden by iron and steel helmet
Helmet
A helmet is a form of protective gear worn on the head to protect it from injuries.Ceremonial or symbolic helmets without protective function are sometimes used. The oldest known use of helmets was by Assyrian soldiers in 900BC, who wore thick leather or bronze helmets to protect the head from...

s. Eventually a formal system of rules developed into ever more complex forms of heraldry.



Image:Charles V Arms-imperial.svg|This is the imperial Coat of arms of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

. From the time of Otto the Great onward, the various German princes elected one of their peers as King of the Germans, after which he would be crowned as emperor by the Pope. The last emperor to be crowned by the pope was Charles V; all emperors after him were technically emperors-elect, but were universally referred to as Emperor.
Image:Blason Albert de Mecklembourg (selon Gelre).svg| This the coat of arm of Albert of Sweden
Albert of Sweden
Albert was King of Sweden from 1364 to 1389 and Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1384 to 1412.-Background:...

. He was the King of Sweden from 1364, and in 1384 he inherited the ducal title of Mecklenburg and united the two countries in a personal union.

Image:Gion mamori01.jpg| Like Western heraldry, Japanese mons were initially held only by aristocratic families, and were gradually adapted by commoners. Japanese traditional formal attire generally displays the mon of the wearer. Commoners without mon often used that of their patron or the organization they belonged to. This the coat of arm of Gion Mamori of Japan.

Image:Yorkshire rose.svg|This is the White Rose of York
White Rose of York
The White Rose of York , a white heraldic rose, is the symbol of the House of York and has since been adopted as a symbol of Yorkshire as a whole.-History:...

, a white heraldic rose, which is the symbol of the House of York. Traditionally the origins of the emblem are said to go back to Edmund of Langley in the fourteenth century, the first Duke of York
Duke of York
The Duke of York is a title of nobility in the British peerage. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of the British monarch. The title has been created a remarkable eleven times, eight as "Duke of York" and three as the double-barreled "Duke of York and...

 and the founder of the House of York
House of York
The House of York was a branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet, three members of which became English kings in the late 15th century. The House of York was descended in the paternal line from Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, the fourth surviving son of Edward III, but also represented...

 as a Cadet branch
Cadet branch
Cadet branch is a term in genealogy to describe the lineage of the descendants of the younger sons of a monarch or patriarch. In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets – titles, realms, fiefs, property and income – have...

 of the then ruling House of Plantagenet
House of Plantagenet
The House of Plantagenet , a branch of the Angevins, was a royal house founded by Geoffrey V of Anjou, father of Henry II of England. Plantagenet kings first ruled the Kingdom of England in the 12th century. Their paternal ancestors originated in the French province of Gâtinais and gained the...

. The actual symbolism behind the rose has religious connotations as it represents the Virgin Mary, who was often called the Mystical Rose of Heaven.


Logos and trademarks

A trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

 is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, company or other entity to identify its products or services and to distinguish them from those of other producers. A trademark is a type of intellectual property, and typically a name, word, phrase, logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...

, symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

, design, image, or a combination of these elements.


Image:Coca-Cola logo.svg| This graphic design of the Coca-Cola logo is the work of Frank Mason Robinson who created it in 1885. This old Logotype has been around more than a century, which could be regarded as a measure of its success. A successful logotype will create a sense of loyalty among the clienteles.

Image:Googlelogo.png| Google is a young high-tech company, and its logotype created by Ruth Kedar reminds us of the Mondrian minimalism. Kedar has emphasized the playfulness of her design, and its simplicity that conveys an illusion of non-design. According to her " The colors evoke memories of child play, but deftly stray from the color wheel strictures so as to hint to the inherent element of serendipity creeping into any search results page ... The texture and shading of each letter is done in an unobtrusive way resulting in lifting it from the page while giving it both weight and lightness.


Rebranding

Rebranding means staying relevant as competition heats up and sales start to stagnate. In such circumstances companies often seek to breathe new life into the brand through rebranding. The idea behind it is that the assumptions made when the brand was established may no longer hold true.

Signage of culture and peace


Image:Olympic flag.svg| This flag of the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 that has been designed by Pierre de Coubertin
Pierre de Coubertin
Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin was a French educationalist and historian, founder of the International Olympic Committee, and is considered the father of the modern Olympic Games...

 reminds the viewer of the minimalism of Mondrian. According to Coubertin "This design is symbolic; it represents the five continents of the world, united by Olympism, while the six colours are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time"

The logo of the Socialist Party (France)
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...

.The rose symbol represents; community (the flower's petals), socialism (its red color), taking care of those who are less able to compete (the fragility), the struggle (the thorns), cultural life (beauty). Historically, the red rose became the party's emblem during the nineteen-seventies. The fist symbol was a sign of resistance. Although the Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...

 Socialists turned the fist into a graphic holding a rose.

Known worldwide by its panda logo, the Switzerland-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) participates in international efforts to protect endangered species and their habitats.

Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières
' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...

, or Doctors Without Borders, is best known for its humanitarian projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic disease. Their logo using a minimalist approach creates its visual impact.

Information signs: ISOTYPE

In 1921, Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist...

, an Austrian social scientist, introduced graphic design in order to facilitate the understanding of various social and economical trends through the creative use of statistical charts. In 1924, Neurath advocated the establishment of the Museum of Economy and Society, an institution for public education and social information. In May 1925, the Museum's first graphical displays was opened to the public. The exhibition showed various complicated social and economical trends. By using charts which were to be intuitive and interesting the attempt was to make those concepts easy to grasp. This style of presentation at the time was called the Viennese method, but now it is known as ISOTYPE
Isotype (pictograms)
Isotype is a method of showing social, technological, biological and historical connections in pictorial form...

 charts (International System of Typographic Picture Education).

The Vienese method

Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath
Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist...

 (1882–1945) was an enthusiast of sociology. After obtaining his PhD he worked on planning the war economy of the Austro-Hungarian empire. However, by 1919 he was engaged in the planning for a wholly new economic system of the chaotic and short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic. He proposed for the abolition of money, but before this could be implemented, the republic was bloodily overthrown by Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

's Social Democrats. Neurath escaped to Vienna, where he become an activist for the self-help squatters' movement. In the 1920s he joined the Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle was an association of philosophers gathered around the University of Vienna in 1922, chaired by Moritz Schlick, also known as the Ernst Mach Society in honour of Ernst Mach...

 of Logical Positivists, who attempted to establish a scientific foundation for philosophy; and at the same time he pioneered the graphic methods that became Isotype and were shown in the "Museum of Society and Economy". He fled Vienna after the collapse of its social democratic city governmentin 1934. Neurath's final years were spent in Britain, as postwar planner for the Midlands town of Bilston.

As Lupton argues: Neurath suggested "two central rules for generating the vocabulary of international pictures: reduction, for determining the style of individual signs; and consistency, for giving a group of signs the appearance of a coherent system". Reduction means finding the simplest expression of an object. For instance, silouette is a basic technique for reduction. It emulates the shadow of the image without any human intervention. Thus, it is a natural cast rather than a cultural interpretation. The sign as geometric representation of reality is both a rhetorical connotation and a practical technique for many symbol designers. Martin Krampen suggested "simplified realism;" he urged designers to "start from silhouette photographs of objects...and then by subtraction...obtain silouette pictographs."

Gerd Arntz
Gerd Arntz
Gerd Arntz was a German Modernist artist - famous for his black and white woodcuts. A core member of the Cologne Progressives he was also a council communist...

 (1900–1988) was born in a German family of traders and manufacturers. He was a socio-political activistin Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, where he joined a movement that aimed to turn Germany into a radical-socialist state form. As a revolutionary artist, Arntz was connected to the Cologne based ‘progressive artists group’ (Gruppe progressiver Künstler Köln) and depicted the life of workers and the class struggle in abstracted figures on woodcuts. Published in leftist magazines, his work was noticed by Otto Neurath who for his ‘Vienna method of visual statistics’ needed a designer of pictograms that could summarize a subject at a glance. Neurath invited the young artists to come to Vienna in 1928, and work on further developing his ISOTYPE. Arntz designed around 4000 different pictograms and abstracted illustrations for this system.

Neurath's motto was ‘words divide, images unite’. Many of his designs together with those of his protégé Gerd Arntz
Gerd Arntz
Gerd Arntz was a German Modernist artist - famous for his black and white woodcuts. A core member of the Cologne Progressives he was also a council communist...

 were the forebears of pictograms we now encounter everywhere, such as the man and woman on toilet doors. As Marina Vishmidt suggests: "Neurath's pictograms owe much to the Modernist belief that reality may be modified by being codified – standardised, easy-to-grasp templates as a revolution in human affairs.

Olympic pictograms

The logos and pictograms for Olympic Games change every four years and the sponsoring city develops its own logos. Pictograms first appeared at the Olympics in London in 1948. They came into wide use, since they simultaneously communicate a message to a large number of people who speak different languages. In the absence of such signs in venues such as Olympic village there would be a need for many written signs in different languages, for example for rowing such as; Roning، Κωπηλασία، Aviron, قایق رانی، and ボート競技 which not only would be costly but also may confuse the viewers. Symbols for individual sports developed by Masasa Katzoumie and Yoshiro Yamashita in Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

Pictograms in Mexico Olympic Games, 1968. A group of Olympic identity program designers collaborated on the creation of these symbols, which were employed to designate the events and installations for both the sports program and the Cultural Olympiad.

Inspired by the pictograms of Gerd Arntz
Gerd Arntz
Gerd Arntz was a German Modernist artist - famous for his black and white woodcuts. A core member of the Cologne Progressives he was also a council communist...

, Otl Aicher, design director for the Munich 1972 games, in the words of Michael Bierut
Michael Bierut
Michael Bierut is a graphic designer, design critic and educator.Bierut was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning....

 "developed a set of pictograms of such breathtaking elegance and clarity that they would never be topped. Aicher (1922-1991), founder of the Ulm design school and consultant to Braun and Lufthansa, was the quintessential German designer: precise, cool and logical".

Olympic Games pictograms of Barcelona in 1992 were influnced by Aicher's work. However, the geometric shapes were abandoned in favour of the characteristic line of the emblem created by Josep. M. Trias and its stylized simplification of the human body in three parts.

Twenty-four sport pictograms and a series of sport illustrations for the 2010 Winter Games are created by Dutch illustrator Irene Jacobs of I’m JAC Design.

Astronomical, statistical and scientific charts


Image:An astronomical chart of the sky drawn by Nicholas Copernicus in 1543.jpg|Astrnomical charts have a long history. For instance, an engraving of an ancient Egyptian diagram of the heavens from the Temple of Dendara, depicts the sky on the date of the founding of the temple in 54 BC. The above chart is an astronomical map of the sky drawn by Nicholas Copernicus in 1543 that replaced an earlier chart by Cellarius showing the Earth centred universe.

Image:Scene-render.svg|In this graphic chart the position of two planets in relation to a viewer, and their position as they appear to a specific viewer is shown. These types of charts are used in various textbooks to describe various scientific phenomena. They are used as well by manufacturers for their manuals in order to help the buyers to become familiar with the working of a gadget.

Image:Adobe Flex BubbleChart.png | This is a bubble chart
Bubble chart
A bubble chart is a type of chart where each plotted entity is defined in terms of three distinct numeric parameters. Bubble charts can facilitate the understanding of the social, economical, medical, and other scientific relationships.- Overview :...

, which can show the relationship between three variables. These charts facilitate the understanding of the social, economical, medical, and other scientific relationships.



Statistics is becoming increasingly more important in modern society. Various computer software can easily transform a large set of data into charts, graphs, and statistics of various types in an attempt to provide us with succinct information to make decisions.

Dynamic designs and computer animation



Image:Muybridge race horse animated.gif‎| Computer animation creates the illusion of motion by viewing a succession of computer-generated still images. In the past, animation was produced by filming painted sequences on plastic or paper cels. The above animation was created from photos by Eadweard Muybridge in 1887. Computer animation can be used to produce special effects for educational purposes, such as the study of planetary motions, particle collisions, or fluid dynamics.
Image:Archimedes-screw one-screw-threads with-ball 3D-view animated small.gif | Dynamic graphics are used to facilitate understanding of concepts in science, engineering, medicine, education, and business. Computer graphics facilitates the production of images that range in complexity from simple line drawings to three-dimensional reconstructions of data. The evolution of a phenomenon through time and its interactions with other elements can be shown through animation.
Image:Orthographic_camera_distance_focal_length.gif| In this 3-D dynamic design a cube is studied from various angles. These types of animations can be very useful in the study of various objects. They can also be used to study the evolution of a process through time.:
Image:5-cell.gif‎|The art of dynamic designs is still in its infancy. With the availability of sophisticated computer graphics techniques the horizon has been expanded enormously for graphic designers.

Pioneers of modern graphics and industrial design


Image:AEG logo.svg|In 1907, AEG
AEG
Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau....

 (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gessellschaft) retained Peter Behrens
Peter Behrens
Peter Behrens was a German architect and designer. He was important for the modernist movement, as several of the movements leading names worked for him when they were young.-Biography:Behrens attended the Christianeum Hamburg from September 1877 until Easter 1882...

, a German architect and designer, as artistic consultant. He designed the entire corporate identity (logotype, product design, publicity, etc.) and for that he is considered the first industrial designer in history. He never became an employee of AEG, but worked as an artistic consultant.

Image:IBM logo.svg|Paul Rand
Paul Rand
Paul Rand Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum, (August 15, 1914 — November 26, 1996) was an American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Westinghouse, ABC, and Steve Jobs’ NeXT...

 an American graphic designer, is best known for his corporate logo designs. His career began with a part-time position creating stock image
Stock photography
Stock photography is the supply of photographs licensed for specific uses. It is used to fulfill the needs of creative assignments instead of hiring a photographer. Today, stock images can be presented in searchable online databases. They can be purchased and delivered online...

s for a syndicate that supplied graphics to various newspapers and magazines. Between his class assignments and his work, Rand was able to amass a fairly large portfolio, largely influenced by the German advertising style Sachplakat (object poster) as well as the works of Gustav Jensen.

Raymond Loewy
Raymond Loewy
Raymond Loewy was an industrial designer, and the first to be featured on the cover of Time Magazine, on October 31, 1949. Born in France, he spent most of his professional career in the United States...

 was one of the best known industrial designers of the 20th century. Born in France, he spent most of his professional career in the United States. Among his many contributions were the Shell logo, the Greyhound bus, the S-1 locomotive, the Lucky Strike package, Coldspot refrigerators and the Studebaker Avanti. Loewy was first approached by the greyhound corporation to redesign its logo. the company's logo looked like a 'fat mongrel' he said. so, he created a slimmed-down version that is still used today.

William Golden
William Golden
William Golden is considered to be one of the pioneers of American graphic design. He is best known for his work at Columbia Broadcasting System, starting in the CBS Radio promotion department and culminating in his tenure as creative director of advertising and sales promotion for CBS Television...

 is one of the pioneers of American graphic design. He was born in lower Manhattan, the youngest of twelve children. His only formal schooling was at the Vocational School for Boys, where he learned photoengraving and the basics of commercial design.In conjunction with the Didot typeface, Golden developed the famous CBS Eye logo. It has been suggested that the eye was inspired by an article in Alexey Brodovitch
Alexey Brodovitch
Alexey Brodovitch was a Russian-born photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar from 1938 to 1958.- Early life in Russia :...

's Portfolio about the subject of Shaker design.

Placards and posters

Placard and posters existed from the ancient times. The Persian reliefs that depicted the important historical events; and the Greek axons and the Roman Albums, with their decorative designs and announcements, were quite similar to today's posters. In ancient Greece the name of athletes, and games schedules were written on columns that were slowly turning on an axis. Romans used whitewashed walls in their markets in which sellers, money lenders, and slave traders wrote their announcements and advertised for their products, and to attract the attention of customers they added attractive designs to their announcements.

Ancient reliefs


Image:Naqsh i Rustam. Investiture d'Ardashir 1.jpg|This Persian rock relief depicts Ardashir I
Ardashir I
Ardashir I was the founder of the Sassanid Empire, was ruler of Istakhr , subsequently Fars Province , and finally "King of Kings of Sassanid Empire " with the overthrow of the Parthian Empire...

 Coronation scene; the first king of the Sassanid Empire
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...

 of Iran. Ardashir receives the ribboned diadem (cydaris), the symbol of kingship, from the spirit of Darius I of Persia
Darius I of Persia
Darius I , also known as Darius the Great, was the third king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire...

 of the Achaemenid dynasty. Under the horse of the King Ardashir lies the last of the Parthian Kings, Artabanus
Artabanus IV of Parthia
Artabanus IV of Parthia ruled the Parthian Empire . He was the younger son of Vologases V who died in 208. Artabanus rebelled against his brother Vologases VI, and soon gained the upper hand, although Vologases VI maintained himself in a part of Babylonia until about 228.The Roman emperor...

. Under the horse of King Darius lies Gaumata the usurper, a Magian,. The relief of Ardashir is, therefore, the legitimization of the new Sassanian dynasty by the pre-Alexander Achaemenid dynasty. The inscription in Persian, Parthian, and Greek, reads: This is the image of the Hormizd-worshipping Majesty Ardashir, whose origin is of the gods.

Image:Naqsh- e Rostam VI relief Shapur Ist.jpg|Sassanid king Shapur I
Shapur I
Shapur I or also known as Shapur I the Great was the second Sassanid King of the Second Persian Empire. The dates of his reign are commonly given as 240/42 - 270/72, but it is likely that he also reigned as co-regent prior to his father's death in 242 .-Early years:Shapur was the son of Ardashir I...

 of Iran in this relief at Naqsh-e Rostam , celebrats his victories over the Roman emperor Publius Licinius Valerianus. Iran, City of Marvdasht
Marvdasht
Marvdasht is a city in and the capital of Marvdasht County, Fars Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 123,858, in 29,134 families.- Historical background :Marvdasht is as ancient of the history of Iran and the vast Persian empire...

, Province of Fars. According to his records: "Just as we were established on the throne, the emperor Gordianus gathered in all of the Roman Empire an army of Goths and Gemans and marched ... against us. On the edges of Assyria,... there was a great frontal battle. And Gordianus Caesar perished, and we destroyed the Roman army. And the Romans proclaimed Philip emperor. And Philip Caesar came to us for terms, and paid us 500,000 denars as ransom for his life and became tributary to us".

Image:Banteay Srei in Angkor.jpg|Relief at the temple Banteay Srei
Banteay Srei
Banteay Srei or Banteay Srey is a 10th century Cambodian temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Located in the area of Angkor in Cambodia. It lies near the hill of Phnom Dei, north-east of the main group of temples that once belonged to the medieval capitals of Yasodharapura and Angkor Thom...

 in Angkor
Angkor
Angkor is a region of Cambodia that served as the seat of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. The word Angkor is derived from the Sanskrit nagara , meaning "city"...

, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

, depicting a religious scene. It is dedicated in 967 AD to the Hindu god Siva. In the middle of the scene stands the ten-headed demon king Ravana. He is shaking the mountain in its very foundations as the animals flee from his presence and as the wise men and mythological beings discuss the situation or pray.

Image:Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their children.jpg|This shrine stela from the early part of the Amarna Period
Amarna Period
The Amarna Period was an era of Egyptian history during the latter half of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten in what is now modern-day Amarna...

 depicts an intimate family moment of Pharaoh Ankhenaten, his wife Nefertiti
Nefertiti
Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they started to worship one god only...

, and Princesses Meretaten, Mekeaten, and Ankhesenpaaten worshiping the Aten as a family. While Akhenaten leans forward to give Meretaten a kiss, Mekeaten plays on her mother's lap and gazes up lovingly. At the same time Ankhesenpaaten, the smallest, sits on Nefertiti's shoulder and fiddles with her earring. At the top of the composition, the sun-god, Aten, represented by a raised circle, extends his life-giving rays to the Royal Family.

Emergence of the print and design industry

Around 1450, Johann Gutenberg's printing press made books widely available in Europe. The book design of Aldus Manutius
Aldus Manutius
Aldus Pius Manutius , the Latinised name of Aldo Manuzio —sometimes called Aldus Manutius, the Elder to distinguish him from his grandson, Aldus Manutius, the Younger—was an Italian humanist who became a printer and publisher when he founded the Aldine Press at Venice.His publishing legacy includes...

 developed the book structure which would become the foundation of western publication design. With the development of the lithographic process, invented by a Czech named Alois Senefelder
Alois Senefelder
Johann Alois Senefelder was a German actor and playwright who invented the printing technique of lithography in 1796.-Actor, playwright:...

 in 1798 in Austria, the creation of posters become feasible. Although handmade posters existed before, they were mainly used for government announcements. William Caxton
William Caxton
William Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England...

, who in 1477 started a printing company in England, produced the first printed poster.
In 1870, the advertising poster emerged.


Image:Aldo Manuzio Aristotele.jpg|Aristotle printed by Aldus Manutius, 1495-98 (Libreria antiquaria Pregliasco, Turin)

Image:Manutius.jpg|A page from Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, printed by Aldus Manutius

Image:Caxton device.png|The printer's device of William Caxton, 1478.

Image:Canterbury Tales.png|A woodcut from William Caxton's second edition of the Canterbury Tales printed in 1483.


Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The process was developed in Germany in the 1430s from the engraving used by goldsmiths to decorate metalwork. Engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin
Burin
Burin from the French burin meaning "cold chisel" has two specialised meanings for types of tools in English, one meaning a steel cutting tool which is the essential tool of engraving, and the other, in archaeology, meaning a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which was probably...

 to cut the design into the surface, most traditionally a copper plate. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types.



Image:Theodor de Bry.png|Theodor de Bry (1528 – 1598) was an engraver, goldsmith and editor. An engraving portrait of Theodorus de Bry, by himself and confirming his origins from Liège, in Latin "Leodiensis", between brackets: (a city at that time belonging neither to Flanders or Wallonia, or even to Belgium).

Image:Dürer-Hieronymus-im-Gehäus.jpg|Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

, St Jerome in his study. Albrecht Dürer was a German painter and printmaker. (1514)

Image:SchongauerEcceHomo.jpg|Ecce Homo, Engraving, 15.th century, by Martin Schongauer
Martin Schongauer
Martin Schongauer was a German engraver and painter. He was the most important German printmaker before Albrecht Dürer....

(c. 1448 – 1491). He was a German engraver and painter, and was the most important German printmaker before Albrecht Dürer.

Image:Mk Frankfurt Merian Stadtansicht.jpg|Matthäus Merian
Matthäus Merian
Matthäus Merian der Ältere was a Swiss-born engraver who worked in Frankfurt for most of his career, where he also ran a publishing house.-Early life and marriage:...

, View of Frankfurt, between 1612 and 1619. Merian was a notable Swiss engraver.


Etching

Etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...

 is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal. This technique is believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer
Daniel Hopfer
Daniel Hopfer was a German artist who is widely believed to have been the first to use etching in printmaking, at the end of the fifteenth century...

 (c. 1470-1536) of Augsburg, Germany, who decorated armour in this way, and applied the method to printmaking. Etching soon came to challenge engraving as the most popular printmaking medium. Its great advantage was that, unlike engraving which requires special skill in metalworking, etching is relatively easy to learn for an artist trained in drawing.



Image:Kunz von der Rosen.jpg|Court jester of Emperor Maximilian I
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...

. Etching by Daniel Hopfer
Daniel Hopfer
Daniel Hopfer was a German artist who is widely believed to have been the first to use etching in printmaking, at the end of the fifteenth century...

, (1493).

Image:Gärtnerin mit Korb (Belange).jpg|Gardener with basket, c. 1612, Etching by Jacques Bellange
Jacques Bellange
Jacques Bellange was an artist and printmaker from the Duchy of Lorraine whose etchings and some drawings are his only securely identified works today. They are among the most striking Mannerist old master prints, mostly on Catholic religious subjects, and with a highly individual style...

 . He was an artist and printmaker from Lorraine
Lorraine (province)
The Duchy of Upper Lorraine was an historical duchy roughly corresponding with the present-day northeastern Lorraine region of France, including parts of modern Luxembourg and Germany. The main cities were Metz, Verdun, and the historic capital Nancy....

, now in France.(c. 1575 - 1616).

Image:Félicien Rops 001.jpg|Pornocrates by Félicien Rops
Félicien Rops
Félicien Rops was a Belgian artist, and printmaker in etching and aquatint.-Early life:Rops was born in Namur as the only son to Nicholas Rops and Sophie Maubile. He was educated at the University of Brussels...

. He was a Belgian artist, and printmaker in etching and aquatint, 1896.

Image:Blake ancient of days.jpg|William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

's Ancient of Days
Ancient of Days
Ancient of Days is a name for God in Aramaic: Atik Yomin; in the Greek Septuagint: Palaios Hemeron; and in the Vulgate: Antiquus Dierum....

, etching/watercolour, (1794).


Modern graphic design

Perhaps it would be possible to consider William Morris the father of modern graphics. In the second half of 19th century his Kelmscott Press produced many graphic designs, and created a collectors market for this kind of art. In Oxford he associated with artists like Burne-Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Together they formed the Pre-Raphaelites group, and their ideas influenced the modern graphic design considerably.


Image:Morris Peacock and Dragon Fabric 1878 v2.jpg|This fabric design called Peacock and Dragon, which is the work of William Morris (1878) is an example of decorative graphic design. Such designs was revived during the 1960s with the emergence of the hippie movement.
Image:Morris Tulip and Willow design 1873.jpg| This Morris Tulip and Willow design (1873) is another example of decorative graphics. By using a diagonal blue, with only some suggestion of orange the artist tries to create a harmonious color scheme that could be used effectively in the design of a poster or other graphic design media.
Image:Kelmscott Press - The Nature of Gothic by John Ruskin (first page).jpg|This is the first page of The Nature of Gothic by John Ruskin which was published by Kelmscott Press of William Morris. The decorative design was the revival of the Gothic style in graphic design.
Image:Rubaiyat Morris Burne-Jones Manuscript.jpg| This book of poetry, called Rubaiyat, by the famous Persian poet Omar Khayyam, is an example of early modern graphic design cooperation. The graphic composition of calligraphy and its decorative design are by Morris and the painting is by Burne-Jones.

Posters Post-World War II

After the Second World War, with the emergence new color printing technology and particularly appearance of computers the art of posters underwent a new revolutionary phase. People can create color poster on their laptop computers and create color prints at a very low cost. Unfortunately, the high cost sophisticated printing processes can only be afforded mostly by the government entities and large corporations. With the emergence of internet the role of posters in conveying information has greatly diminished. However, some artist still use the chromolithography in order to create works of arts in the form of print. In this regard the difference between painting and print has been narrowed considerably.

Psychedelic design

The word "psychedelic" means "mind manifesting". Psychedelic art
Psychedelic art
Psychedelic art is any kind of visual artwork inspired by psychedelic experiences induced by drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. The word "psychedelic" "mind manifesting". By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic"...

 is art inspired by the psychedelic experience induced by drugs, and refers above all to the art movement of the 1960s counterculture. Psychedelic visual arts were a counterpart to psychedelic rock music. Concert posters, album covers, lightshows, murals, comic books, underground newspapers and more reflected revolutionary political, social and spiritual sentiments inspired by psychedelic states of consciousness.

Although San Francisco remained the hub of psychedelic art into the early 1970s, the style also developed internationally. Pink Floyd worked extensively with London based designers, Hipgnosis to create graphics to support the concepts in their albums like this cover of Soundtrack from the Film 'More. Life magazine's cover and lead article for the September 1, 1967 issue at the height of the Summer of Love focused on the explosion of psychedelic art on posters and the artists as leaders in the hippie counterculture community.

Yellow Submarine was a milestone in graphic design, inspired by the new trends in art, it sits aloingside the dazzling Pop Art styles of Andy Warhol, Martin Sharp, Alan Aldridge and Peter Blake. Heinz Edelman was hired by TVC as the art director for this film. Before making Yellow Submarine, TVC had produced The Beatles, a 39 episode TV series "produced" by Al Brodax and King Features. Despite the critical acclaim of his design work for the film, Edelman never worked on another animated feature.

Peter Max
Peter Max
Peter Max is a German-born Jewish American artist. At first, works in this style appeared on posters and were seen on the walls of college dorms all across America. Max then became fascinated with new printing techniques that allowed for four-color reproduction on product merchandise...

's art work was a part of the psychedelic movement in graphic design. His work was much imitated in commercial illustration in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1970, many of Max's products and posters were featured in the exhibition "The World of Peter Max" which opened at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. He appeared on the cover of Life magazine with an eight-page feature article as well as the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the Ed Sullivan Show.

Poster design in Japan

The distinctive aesthetics of Japanese graphic design have been admired over many decades, winning awards at prestigious international venues.

The works of Japanese graphic designers are noted for their resourcefulness, powerful visual expression and extraordinary technical quality of print.

The distinctive artistic language and typographic sophistication
Sophistication
Sophistication is the quality of refinement — displaying good taste, wisdom and subtlety rather than crudeness, stupidity and vulgarity.In the perception of social class, sophistication can link with concepts such as status, privilege and superiority....

 show particularly in Japanese poster-design. The Japanese poster is a compelling pictorial medium and an original work of art, reflecting in full the designer's creative talent.

Chinese cultural revolution

This poster "Revolution promotes production", created by He Shuxui, celebrates traditional ceramic painting techniques. A plaque in the background commemorates a group of ceramic workers as an outstanding productive unit, 1974.

The poster "The three countries of Indo Zhina (Lao, Cambodia, Vietnam) will win!", was created by a worker named Wang Qing Cang. On the upper left side, it says "Enemies are getting sicker and sicker every day, and we are getting better and better every day." Indo Zhina (Indochina) governments were supported by the U.S. while China supported their communist guerilla forces. October 1964.

This poster "Mao Ze Dong at Jing Gang Mountain" depicts a young Mao Ze Dong sitting against a background of Mount Jing Gang. Jing Gang Shan, Jing Gang Mountain symbolizes the Mao Ze Dong leadership and his vision to unite the oppressed masses to fight against and fight against the ruling class. Created by Liu Chun Hua and Wang Hui, October 1969.

This poster, "Time is Money", features the famous Canadian doctor Norman Bethune
Norman Bethune
Henry Norman Bethune was a Canadian physician and medical innovator. Bethune is best known for his service in war time medical units during the Spanish Civil War and with the Communist Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War...

, (Dr. Bai Qiuen in Chinese). He is racing to rescue another patient. Bethune was an early proponent of universal health care, the success of which he observed during a visit to the Soviet Union. As a doctor in Montreal, Bethune frequently sought out the poor and gave them free medical care. As a thoracic surgeon, he traveled to Spain (1936–1937) and China (1938–1939) to perform battlefield surgical operations on war casualties. Created by Zhang Xin Gua. Hebei People's Publishing House.

Culture and politics


Image:Al-ahmad behrengi deKhoda hedayat.jpg| This magazine cover reproduced from an original poster by Guity Novin
Guity Novin
Guity Novin is an Iranian-Canadian figurative painter, and graphic designer residing in Canada. She classifies her work as Transpressionism, a movement she has introduced.Her works are in private and public collections worldwide....

, depicts four famous Iranian writers of the 20th century (Jalal Al-e-Ahmad
Jalal Al-e-Ahmad
Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was a prominent Iranian writer, thinker, and social and political critic.-Personal life:...

, Samad Behrangi
Samad Behrangi
Samad Behrangi was an Iranian teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator, and short story writer of Azeri extraction. He is famous for his children's book, The Little Black Fish.-Life:He was born in Tabriz to a lower-class Azerbaijani family...

, Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, and Sadeq Hedayat). In order to create this color scheme the artist uses only two colors (orange and green) over a yellow background. By using a circular arrangement of faces she tries to achieve a balanced composition. (1971).

Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...

 was an American photographer. Avedon capitalized on his early success in fashion photography and expanded into the realm of fine art. This is a solarised poster portraits of the Beatles, originally produced for 9 January 1967 edition of the American magazine Look
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...

.

The Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 "hope" poster is an iconic image of Barack Obama designed by artist Shepard Fairey. The image became one of the most widely recognized symbols of Obama's campaign message, spawning many variations and imitations, including some commissioned by the Obama campaign. In January 2009, after Obama had won the election, Fairey's mixed-media stenciled portrait version of the image was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its National Portrait Gallery.

Image:Poster loveulster.gif| This political poster by Tiocfaidh Ár Lá about Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...

.
Image:PavlovskiyMAYAKOVSKIY.jpg | Andrew Pavlovsky
Andrew Pavlovsky
Andrew Pavlovsky is a contemporary Russian artist. He is a member of the Moscow Artists Union, the International Federation of Artists and Russian Philosophical Union.- Biography :...

 poster of Poet MAYAKOVSKIY
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...

 (2003). This poster is a graphic illustration of a true interest to Constructivism
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...

 in Russia today. This Art Movement (Constructivism) was almost always in demand in Russia and it can become one of principal trends now. Some of the contemporary Russian artists and art historians have already suggested the new term - Additive Constructivism. It emphasizes the return to modernism, which starts to significantly push out the postmodern art practices. It's not a postmodern performance. The Constructivist color solution proves that so it is.

Computer aided graphic design in posters

With the arrival of computer aided graphic design an assortment of novel effects, digital techniques, and innovative styles have been emerged in poster designs. With software such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel and Windows' Paint program image editing has become very cheap and artists can experiment easily with a variety of color schemes, filters and special effects. For Instance, utilizing various filters of Photoshop, many artists have created "vectored" designs in posters where a photographic image is solarized, sharpened, rendered into watercolor or stained glass effects or converted into bare lines with block colors. Other designs created soft or blurry styles, ripple or cascade effects and other special filters.

Advertising

Graphic design is used in advertising to announce a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; or a promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers. Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters. Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of Pompei and ancient Arabia. Lost and found advertising on papyrus was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America.

Advertising in the 19th century


Image:Edo period advertising in Japan.jpg | This advertising flier from 1806 is for a traditional medicine called Kinseitan. Display in the Edo Tokyo Museum.

Image:Bagnoles de l'Orne XIXth century adv.jpg | This is a 19th century advertising poster for the hydrotherapic baths of Bagnoles de l'Orne (France).

Image:Gems of the Minstrelsy.jpg | This is a playbill for Perham's Opera Vocalists, 1856.

Image:Miss-Annie-Oakley-peerless-wing-shot.jpg | This poster from the second half of the 1880s advertises for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, advertising "Miss Annie Oakley, the peerless lady wing-shot".


Advertising in the early 20th century


Image:Affiche AL.JPG | This is a French poster for Audibert et Lavirotte. The Audibert & Lavirotte
Audibert & Lavirotte
The Audibert & Lavirotte was a French automobile, manufactured in Lyon from 1894 to 1901.The company, the oldest maker of automobiles in the city, was set up by Maurice Audibert and Emile Lavirotte built cars that were generally similar to the Benz. These were up to 6 horsepower, and featured belt...

 was a French automobile, manufactured in Lyon from 1894 to 1901.

Image:Fritz Rehm-Cigaretten Laferme Dresden.jpg | This is a German poster by Fritz Rehm for Laferme Cigarettes (published 1896-1900)

Image:Trapeze artists 1899.jpg | Circus poster, 1899. "Forepaugh & Sells Brothers Shows Combined. The world famed Hanlon Troupe in the most astonishing mid-air achievements ever accomplished."

Image:Cocacola-5cents-1900 edit1.jpg | "Drink Coca-Cola 5¢", an 1890s advertising poster showing a woman in fancy clothes (partially vaguely influenced by 16th- and 17th-century styles) drinking Coke.

German Plakatstil, "Poster style"

In the early 20th century Germany became the cradle of many of the avant-garde art movements particularly for posters. This crated the "Plakatstil" or "Poster style" movement. This movement became very influential and had a considerable impact on the graphic design for posters. Posters in this style would feature few but strong colours, a sharp, non-cluttered, minimal composition and bold, clear types.
Ludwig Hohlwein


Ludwig Hohlwein
Ludwig Hohlwein
Ludwig Hohlwein was a German poster artist. He was trained and practiced as an architect until 1906 when he switched to poster design. Hohlwein's adaptations of photographic images was based on a deep and intuitive understanding of graphical principles...

 was born in Germany in 1874. He was trained and practiced as an architect until 1906 when he switched to poster design. Hohlwein's adaptations of photographic images was based on a deep and intuitive understanding of graphical principles. His creative use of color and architectural compositions dispels any suggestion that he uses photos as a substitute for creative design.

Poster for Riquet Pralinen Tea c. 1920-1926. Hohlwein was born in the Rhine-Main region of Germany, though he and his work are associated with Munich and Bavaria in southern Germany. There were two schools of Gebrauchsgrafik in Germany at the time, North and South. Hohlwein's high tonal contrasts and a network of interlocking shapes made his work instantly recognizable.

Poster historian Alain Weill comments that "Hohlwein was the most prolific and brilliant German posterist of the 20th century... Beginning with his first efforts, Hohlwein found his style with disconcerting facility. It would vary little for the next forty years. The drawing was perfect from the start, nothing seemed alien to him, and in any case, nothing posed a problem for him. His figures are full of touches of color and a play of light and shade that brings them out of their background and gives them substance"

Hohlwein's most artistically important phase was before World War II in the years 1912-1925. A large variety of his best posters dates to this period. He developed his own distinct style with sharply defined forms, bright colors and a good portion of humor. By 1925, he had already designed 3000 different advertisements, and he became the best-known German commercial artist of his time.
Lucian Bernhard



File:Plakat Bernhard - Priester 06.jpg|With nothing to lose, Lucian Bernhard entered a poster contest for the Priester Match Company. The judges, found this poster bizarre, and ignored it. However Ernst Growald, sales manager for Berlin's leading proto-advertising agency and poster printer, saw the discarded poster and exclaimed: "This is my first prize. This is genius!" Bernhard had won both the contest and a long-term benefactor.

File:Plakat Bernhard 08.jpg|Born near Stuttgart as Emil Kahn, he changed his name to Lucian Bernhard and left home for Berlin at the age of 18 in 1901. He became the protege of Edmund Edel, an established artist, who brought him into contact with the printing company and poster publisher Hollerbaum & Schmidt. His first poster, for a match company, became an immediate success. In 1903, he opened his own studio in the center of Berlin. He left Berlin in 1922, and set up a studio in New York City.

Image:German poster by Lucian Bernhard Manoli Rumpler Taube Cigarette 1912.jpg|In 1910 the Berthold Foundry brought out a new type face in "block" letters based on Bernhard's poster lettering, which displayed a remarkable anticipation of the "Sans Serif" lettering of the 1920s. The Flinsch Type Foundry followed with the production of Bernrnhard "Antiqua", "Kursiv", "Fraktur", and half a dozen others.


Over the course of his career, which lasted well into the 1950s, Lucian Bernhard became a prolific designer not only of innovative posters but of trademarks, packaging, type, textiles, furniture, and interior design.

Advertising in the 1920-30 era


Image:Pierce-ArrowColorAd.jpg | Pierce-Arrow auto ad, from advertisement in Life magazine, 1919

Image:Brightest London and Home By Underground.jpg | The London Underground Electric Railway Company Ltd published this poster in 1924.

Image:Uruguay 1930 Worl Cup.jpg | This is an official soccer poster for World Cup in Uruguay, 1930.


1972 Olympics and Otl Aicher posters

The internationally recognized artistOtl Aicher was a graphic designer, urban planner, photographer, and the mastermind behind the imagery for the 1972 Munich Olympics and the Rotis typeface. Growing as a child in Nazi Germany, Aicher, along with his friends Hans and Sophie Scholl, organized the anti-Nazi political organization Die Weisse Rose (the White Rose). In 1943, the Scholls and Aicher were arrested by the Nazi party. While Aicher was released, the Scholls went to trial where they were found guilty of treason and executed. After the war Aicher went on to help rebuild his ravaged city of Ulm and to found the influential international school of design, Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG).

In Munich's original bid for 1972 Olympic one of the main promises was to create a synthesis between sport and art. Otl Aicher was appointed as the head of the committee's visual design group, and his mandate was to deploy art in a relatively new role of promoting this global public event. From the start, posters were high on the agenda of the organizing committee, and ideas were discussed as early as September 1967 to publish a series of art posters that would ‘relate artistic activity to the Olympic Games and engage the best artists to collaborate’, and also to commission an internationally known artist for the official poster.

Otl Aicher created the official posters for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. As he pointed out in his essay "Entwurf der Moderne" (Designing the Modern Era), the German word entwerfen, meaning "to draft "or "design", also contains the verb werfen, meaning "to throw". But where? To whom? What? And with what intention? As Benjamin Secher writes: "He devised an invigorating, almost Day-glo palette for the Olympics that was utterly free of red and black - banned for their association with the German flag. Athletes depicted in the official posters for each sport had their uniforms stripped of any national identifier, leaving the emphasis firmly on individual effort. Even the logo for the Games, a graphic of a radiant sun, hammered home the message of universality and, above all, optimism."

Aicher developed a comprehensive system to articulate the games' character across a wide range of materials, from signage to printed pieces and even staff uniforms. As the introduction to his exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art states: "His works including official posters and sporting event tickets, demonstrate the design tools Aicher used to join individual elements to the collective: structural grids, a bold and animating color palette, and ingenious pictograms. Aicher's orderly and pleasant design nimbly carried the weight of modern German history as it repositioned the nation's hospitality on the world stage".

This is a poster of 1972 Olympics Yachting in Germany designed by Otl Aicher. Using a bright color sheme, borrowed from 60s pop art and psychedelic art, and combining it with German modernism Aicher creates this visual graphic program.

Current advertising

Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...

's My Butt is Big poster appears to covey a bold and honest statement. The only part of a body in the picture is a butt. The text of a poem on the right repeats the curved form of the woman's bottom which is repeated again with some vividly colored splosh of red and purple dots in the background. The background is white, which contrasts with the darker skin of the model. The statement, "My butt is big" is red and larger than the rest of the poem.
Image:Courvoisier Cognac.jpg|This is a modern advertisement poster for Courvoisier Cognac. A balanced composition of the hands, feet, and face of the figure on a black background appear to convey the message of this poster.

This is a look alike poster advertisement for Wendy's
Wendy's
Wendy's is an international fast food chain restaurant founded by Dave Thomas on November 15, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio, United States. The company decided to move its headquarters to Dublin, Ohio, on January 29, 2006. It has been owned by Triarc since 2008...

 "where's the Beef?" campaign. In the TV version of this ad, Clara Peller
Clara Peller
Clara Peller , was a retired manicurist and American character actress who, at the age of 81, starred in the 1984 "Where's the beef?" advertising campaign for the Wendy's fast food restaurant chain, created by the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample ad agency.-Early life:Born in Illinois, Clara Peller lived...

, a gray-haired actress, stared at an unimpressive looking hamburger and asked, "Where's the beef?" This simple message was so sharp that by asking the same question about his rival's program Vice President Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...

 effectively neutralized Colorado Senator Gary Hart
Gary Hart
Gary Hart is an American politician, lawyer, author, professor and commentator. He served as a Democratic Senator representing Colorado , and ran in the U.S...

's momentum in the 1984 presidential campaign.

This is a perfume advertisement for Chanel No 5. The combination of the female figure with the number 5, together with the striking color of dress have resulted in creation of its visual graphic impact.

Comics and graphic novels

A comic refers to a magazine or book of narrative artwork and, virtually always, dialog and descriptive prose. Despite the term, the subject matter in comic is not necessarily humorous; in fact, it is often serious and action-oriented. Due to the fact that graphic design constitutes the main foundation of comics it plays a crucial role in conveying various narratives through its compositional devices, line drawings and colouring scheme.

Conventional comics and pop art

Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

, from the cover art of Superman, issue 204 (April 2004). Art by Jim Lee
Jim Lee
Jim Lee is a Korean-American comic book artist, writer, editor and publisher. He first broke into the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal, before gaining a great deal of popularity on The Uncanny X-Men...

 and Scott Williams
Scott Williams
Scott Williams is the name of:*Scott Williams , stencil artist*Scott Williams , American basketball player*Scott Williams , first head coach of the Illinois college football program...

.Superman is widely considered to be an American cultural icon
Cultural icon
A cultural icon can be a symbol, logo, picture, name, face, person, building or other image that is readily recognized and generally represents an object or concept with great cultural significance to a wide cultural group...

. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...

 and Canadian-born artist Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-born American comic book artist. He was best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1...

 in 1932. The character first appeared in Action Comics
Action Comics
Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...

 in 1938. The character's appearance is distinctive and iconic: a red, blue and yellow costume, complete with cape and with a stylized "S" shield on his chest.

Shang-Chi was created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin. He has no special superpowers, but he exhibits extraordinary skills in the martial arts. 1972

This is Steranko's Contessa Valentina Allegra di Fontaine, from Strange Tales, (Volume 168, May 1968). Lichtenstein's Drowning Girl, and its word ballon appears to has been inspired by a comics similar to this work.

Selecting the old-fashioned comic strip as subject matter, Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...

 used the splash page of a romance story lettered by Ira Schnapp
Ira Schnapp
Ira R. Schnapp was a logo designer and letterer who defined the DC Comics house style for thirty years. He designed the world-famous Action Comics logo, as well as scores of others for the company.- Early life and immigration :...

 in Secret Hearts, (volume 83, November 1962), and slightly reworked the art and dialogue by re-lettering Schnapp's original word balloon. This precise composition, titled Drowning Girl (1963) is now part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Modern comics and graphic novels

Cover of Wanted
Wanted (comics)
Wanted is a comic book limited series written by Mark Millar, with art by J. G. Jones. It was published by Top Cow in 2003 and 2004 as part of Millarworld...

a graphic novel by Mark Millar
Mark Millar
Mark Millar is a Scottish comic book writer, known for his work on books such as The Authority, The Ultimates, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Civil War, Wanted, and Kick-Ass, the latter two of which have been adapted into feature films...

, J. G. Jones, Paul Mounts
Paul Mounts
Paul Mounts is an artist who has worked as a colorist in the comics industry, on comics including Fantastic Four, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Ultimates....

.

The cover of Too Cool to be Forgotten, a comics novel by Alex Robinson
Alex Robinson
Alex Robinson is an award-winning American comic book writer and artist.-Early life:Alex Robinson grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York, and graduated from Yorktown High School in 1987...

. Robinson's draftsmanship balances graphic panels with realism.

Poster for Persepolis (2000), L'Association French edition by Marjane Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author...

 an Iranian graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

ist. Persepolis was adapted into an animated film of the same name which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

 in May 2007 and shared a Special Jury Prize.

Cover of Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Killing Joke is an influential one-shot superhero graphic novel written by Alan Moore and drawn by Brian Bolland. First published by DC Comics in 1988, it has remained in print since then, and has also been reprinted as part of the trade paperback DC Universe: The Stories of Alan...

(1988). Art by Brian Bolland.

Web sites

The aim of graphic design is to make a web site understandable, memorable and attractive to the end user as well to present its content in a user friendly fashion
. The web dates back to the early 1980s at CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...

, a European high energy physics research facility. Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...

who did the initial development stage was interested in the ability to link academic papers electronically and to utilize the internet in order to correspond with people in other laboratories around the world. He is credited with the construction of the first website in August 1991.

Modern life

Today graphic design has penetrated into all aspects of modern life. In particular modern architecture has been influenced by graphics.

Image:Seattle EMP.jpg|This architectural design by Frank Gehry in Seattle Washington clearly demonstrates the impact of graphic design.

Image:Spiral-jetty-from-rozel-point.png|Robert Smithson's monumental graphic art earthwork Spiral Jetty (1970) is located on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Using black basalt rocks and earth from the site, the artist created an artistic composition in the translucent red water with a graphic design 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide.

Image: El Gouna Steigenberger 01.jpg| In the architectural design of Steigenberger Hotel in El Gouna Egypt, the minimalist design with 3-D geometric composition, and monochromatic coloring scheme provides graphical compositions from various angles
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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