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Essay about Summary of History of Graphic Design by Meggs

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Chapter 1: The Invention of Writing
- From the early Paleolithic to the Neolithic period (35,000 BC to 4,000 BC), early Africans and Europeans left paintings in caves, including the
Lascaux caves in Southern France.
- Early pictures were made for survival and for utilitarian and ritualistic purposes. - Petroglyphs are carved or scratched signs on rock.
- These images became symbols for what would be the first spokenlanguage.
- Cuneiform – Wedged shaped writing, created in 3000BC. Started as pictographs. - With the discovery of cuneiform, there was a knowledge explosion, where libraries were organized filling with tablets about religion, mathematics, and history. Writing enabled society to stabilize itself, and laws were …show more content…

- Chinese is thought to have been invented by Tsang Chieh, who was inspired to invent writing after studying the claw marks of birds.
- Chinese characters are logograms meaning that each character represents an entire word (like $ = dollar).
- Paper, a Chinese invention, is attributed with the high government official
Ts’ai Lun.
- Ts’ai Lun’s method of making paper was unchanged until nineteenth century England.
- After the invention of paper, the Chinese also began to use it for wrapping presents, wallpaper, napkins and toilet paper.
- Printing was invented by the Chinese.
- The first method of printing was block printing, using stamps.
- Rubbings were also made by carving words into stone, then inking the stone and making a print on a piece of paper. This is also known as relief printing. - The oldest surviving printed manuscript is the Diamond Sutra.
- Around 1000AD, paper money was printed.
- An early form of Chinese graphic design was playing cards.
- In 1045 AD, Chinese alchemist Pi Sheng developed movable type, using clay and glue.
- Because types are not moveable, characters were organized by rhyme.
- Moveable type never replaced the handcut woodblock of the orient.
- The invention of paper and printing arrived in Europe just as the
Renaissance began.
Chapter 4: Illuminated Manuscripts
- Hand-written books are referred to as Illuminated Manuscripts.
- Two notable traditions of illuminated

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