Timeline For Graphic Design History

A. Beginning of the Industrial Design: Great Britain and Germany




1820
Industrial Revolution :: early 19th century; patternmaker = designer

1849
Journal of Design - by Henry Cole; design should encompass more than applied ornament; knowledge of manufacturing processes and materials.

1851
Great Exhibition - decorative extravagance of Victorian design - Crystal Palace

1860
Arts and Crafts Movement - John Ruskin, William Morris, Gustav Stickley, thought machine production degrading to both workers and consumers.

1903
Wiener Werkstatle - Viennese group; similar to Arts and Crafts Movement.



1901
Frank Lloyd Wright - ‘The Art and Craft of the Machine’; basic principles of modern industrial design; future designers create prototypes for machine production.

1907
Deutscher Werkbund - Hermann Muthesius

1910
AEG (German General Electric); Peter Behrens, denounce Art Nouveau for a spare abstract neoclassicism; products, lighting fixtures, fans, advertising, graphics, and the firm’s overall ‘corporate image’.

1919
Bauhaus - Walter Gropius, union of art and industry; other figures: Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Laszio Moholy-Nagy, and Wilhelm Wagenfeld- [1933 - disbanded by Nazi]



B. Design Profession: USA

1929
US comsumer society emerges: commercial artist, advertising, illustrators

1940
Design business practice common; independent consultants

1939
New York World’s Fair - visual coherence and social harmony; Utopian dream

C. Postwar Europe

1944
Council of Industrial Design; stifled creativity

1947
Swiss design: Armin Hofmann, Emil Ruder, Kunstgewerbeschule Basel

1953
Bauhaus tradition to Hochschule für Gestaltung at Uml. Max Bill and Tomas Maldonado; Dieter Rams at Braun AG.

1960
Pop art; Pentagram Design: Colin Forbes, Theo Crosby



1960
Scandinavian designer: Alvar Aalto

1961
Italian designer: Ettore Sottsass, Memphis group

1968
Post-Modernism: Wolfgang Weingart, Steff Geissbuhler, Odermatt & Tissi

D. Contemporary American Graphic Design

1950
MOMA, promote good design, refugees Gropius, Mies, Breuer; New Bauhaus, Chicago, ID-IIT; Yale University: Alvin Eisenman, Paul Rand, Herbert Matter, Norman Ives

1960
The New York School: Paul Rand, Alexey Brodovich, Henry Wolf, Herb Lubalin, George Lois

1970
Corporate graphics: Olivetti, CBS, CIBA, IBM, Chase, Mobil, Mexico Olympic

1979
New Wave: April Greiman, Kenneth Hiebert, Paula Scher

1980
Micro processor (1984 - Apple Computer, MacWrite, MacPaint)

1993
Internet: Mosaic -> Netscape

Source: Michael Kroeger