In this week class for history of design under Industrial Revolution & Graphic Reactions. I was exposed to the evolution of poster design, from the traditional typography to graphics.

It was an interesting approach to know the flow of the evolution. Especially on the Japonism. How the west actually favoured the Japanese art style so much they incorporated that into their design and it even became a movement on its own. I was even surprised that the poster below, actually has a history of more than one century as I always had the misconception that it was actually a modern piece of art made in recent years. This proves that the foundation of poster design was already very strong since the early days and the basic fundamentals and foundations are sought after by many graphic artists today.

The great wave of kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai, 1829–1833 (Retrieved from Desmond’s Slide in Industrial Revolution & Graphic Reactions)

Moving on, the man, Alphonse Mucha, who was known to create the design and pattern of curvatures in poster design, which also influences further onto future posters designs and even for art nouveau. The extension of the curves has made a huge impact into the evolution which became a primary part of poster design today.

Nevertheless, this is an eye opening lecture that I have gone through, knowing how much did poster design evolved along with the industrial revolution. I personally felt that in terms of the typography, it had shifted from the primary focus of the design to secondary as the main attraction is the graphic, whereas the words are simply a complimentary for the art to direct the gaze of the audiences with the flow.

I am looking forward to see how will graphic form in 2d be manipulated in further lectures to cater towards human expectations in our modern era.