Writing the Renaissance

            Originally the renaissance was the time during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when Greek and Roman literature was reborn and looked at in a new light. Literally meaning “rebirth” or “revival” we now refer to the Renaissance as the time period taking up the space in between the medieval period and modern times. It was during this time that the writing of books and literature underwent much transformation, becoming faster to produce with the invention of the printing press.

            Originating in Venice the printing press saw much attention by printers, type designers such as goldsmith Johannes de Spira, authors, and artists who all worked together in close collaboration to print books during this time. Although he claimed originality and kept the rights, Johannes typefaces closely resembled Sweynheym and Pannartz. His monopoly over printing ended with his death which opened the way for upcoming type casters such as Nicolas Jenson, who published over 150 books and designed popular Greek, Gothic and Roman types.

            As I mentioned in my previous essay graphic design is the collaboration between art and typography, and is used in the modern world for advertisements. During the Renaissance however I would argue that printing was a new found form of graphic design. Lance Hidy found that authors during this time would use symbols that closely related Egyptian hieroglyphics to mark identify their books. This however was only a small part of what made Renaissance books pieces of graphic design. Erhard Ratdolt was highly praised for designing intricate initials and woodcut boarders featuring ornaments resembling patterns from eastern Islamic cultures. Many artists would later take this idea and expand upon it creating extremely intricate cover or title pages mainly featuring plants or flowers of some kind.

            One of the great “graphic designers” of this time was Geoffroy Tory. Tory held many professions including designer, translator, poet and author, publisher and printer. As a scholar in the art of typography and writing he is responsible for the apostrophe, the accent, and the cedilla. Separated into three books Tory’s most influential work was his Champ Fleury a book series that present his findings and innovations to writing. In the first book he explains French grammar, the second focuses more on the roman area of writing, comparing their proportions of the roman letters and the ideal proportions of the human face. The third is what I find most interesting, It contains rules and guides on how to construct your own type face using geometric construction providing grids made up of one hundred squares allowing for exact lettering. What I find most interesting about this book is the type faces that he presents at the end one of which shows the lettering made out of everyday hand tools. 

Book authors of the Renaissance used these symbols to mark their books. In this symbol you can see the resemblance to the scepter a tool used by Kings and other forms of royalty. This particular symbol is used by Andreas Torresanus. 

This font can be found in Tory's third book. This is one of his type casts made out of hand tools.

This is an example of a cover page featuring the wood cut edges that hold ornaments or decoration. This idea was invented by Erhard Ratdolt. 

The Early Era of Graphic Arts

Graphic design and graphic arts have been around since the beginning of mankind. Graphic art is the use of line and other two dimensional elements to create visual art while graphic design is the combination of typography and Graphic arts in order to advertise a certain product. This however would not be the case if it weren't for the early humans who created multiple ways of written communication.

From 35,000 to 4000 BCE early mankind invented graphic art while attempting to communicate with one another. Evidence of this can be found originating and radiating as far as France, New Zealand, and North America, when archaeologists found cave paintings etched into the rock walls. These etched pictures like the one shown below are very simple two dimensional drawings “or symbols to represent ideas or concepts” (Meggs, 7). 

As time progressed and humans became more intellectual building structures such as the pyramids in Egypt or city states like in Mesopotamia, their need for a written language called for progression as well. In Mesopotamia those who wielded power sought a way of record keeping. Thus the first written language was born from this idea. Scribing took a many years to master, and was held in very high esteem. In Egypt those who learned how to write were relieved of taxation and in many other civilizations they held places of power on par with priests. The early civilizations of Egypt were probably the most beneficial in the advancement of writing. They had developed a form of writing that resembled the cave paintings but had more of a system to it featuring carvings that resembled certain sounds and whether those sounds were preceded by other certain carvings they would make different words, expanding on Mesopotamia’s early Cuneiform. In 1798 while on an expedition to cut off English trade route to India Napoleon unearthed the Rosetta Stone (shown below), which brought Egyptian hieroglyphs to the modern world’s attention allowing us to be able to further our understanding of early writing techniques. 

Up until this point many of the writing systems had been carved into stone such as the Rosetta Stone however in the later eras of Egyptian writing papyrus was used as a form of paper to be written on with a brush. This invention made it possible for written texts to be transported or moved from pace to place. There were many different grades of papyrus all being used in different situations. As papyrus grew commonly along the banks of the Nile River it was very inexpensive and therefore many people could afford to buy it for when they were buried with scriptures written on it to ask for the Gods’ good judgment. The image below is a shroud fragment covered in hieroglyphs of Tuthmosis III.