Meggs Philip B. - Meggs History of Graphic Design. Meggs, Alston W. Purvis

Cover design: Cees W. de Jong

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As early as 1922 the Massachusetts-based type designer, calligrapher, and book designer William Addison Dwiggins coined the term graphic design, but it was seldom used before 1945. Until that time graphic designers were mainly referred to as commercial artists. The profession grew extensively during the second half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century. As we move deeper into the digital age it is undergoing more dramatic changes. It is only natural that the new generations of graphic designers have provocative ideas and question existing viewpoints and established notions of aesthetics. Each time we think we are at the forefront, we find that we are only at a new beginning with the future an open panorama.

Numerous methods are utilized to explore the evolution of graphic design history. These include investigating purely visual aspects, studying its economic associations, and considering the effects of new technology. Clearly, the visual aspects of graphic design are of foremost importance, but we must also reflect upon the designers' principles, the influence of their work on viewers, and the meaning of forms and their syntactic associations. Established methods of art history inquiry are often inadequate for approaching the relatively fresh and intricate history of graphic design. Focusing solely on specific designers and their major works or consigning them methodically to specific groups or movements does not fully serve our requirements. New industrial and technological developments such as the introduction of movable type, lithography, and the computer have played, and continue to play, a vital role. Also, creative interactions between designers have become important, especially today with global communications being almost unlimited.

Meggs' History of Graphic Design was never intended to be an all-encompassing historical graphic design encyclopedia, as this would require far more than a single volume. Still, we have attempted to provide a broad survey of notable stages and achievements in graphic design history. In determining what to include, a primary consideration was how particular cultures and individuals affected the contemporary state of the graphic design profession. Today, the graphic design field is much more extensive than in the past, encompassing areas such as motion graphics, design for the built environment, digital type design, design for portable devices, and interactive media. While personal predilections and those of Philip Meggs were significant factors in the selection of designers and images, it was our objective to make such decisions based on reasons that transcended our own aesthetic perceptions. Selections of designers and images were based as much as possible on how clearly they convey ideas, significant design concepts, or particular graphic forms. Obstacles in obtaining publication rights or adequate reproductions also influenced the selection. Thus, some important designers were regrettably excluded.

In graphic design history there have been times when collective visions emerged that cannot be ascribed to one designer. However, there have also been individual designers who clearly created new routes with innovative typographic and expressive forms and unique methods for communicating information. One objective of Meggs' History of Graphic Design has been to document graphic design modernization and those designers who have influenced its ongoing evolution. Attempting to single out particularly consequential designers, especially from the past three decades, has proved to be a challenging task. By consequential I am referring to those who not only produced significant work but also made lasting contributions to the development of the field. For me, the question of what distinguishes a master graphic designer from his or her talented colleagues is both exasperating and difficult. Such a person must have a distinctive artistic vision, an instantly recognizable visual vocabulary, and a unique approach that transcends the standard problem-solving process. The innovative ideas and achievements of master designers from the past have remained at the forefront and continue to enlighten and motivate us today. The graphic design of the last twenty years, though, is a more complex arena. The perimeters separating various graphic design fields have become increasingly blurred, and attribution has become more problematic. Today, many graphic designers produce work together with a revolving team of colleagues and with the fresh insight of interns. Such designs are the products of a number of individuals, and crediting everyone involved not always feasible.

Offering a definitive account of contemporary graphic design will always be a vexing task, and the final chapters of this book have no definitive ending. The English philosopher and historian R. G. Collingwood succinctly summed up this dilemma in 1924: Contemporary history embarrasses a writer not only because he knows too much, but also because what he knows is too undigested, too unconnected, too atomic. It is only after close and prolonged reflection that we begin to see what was essential and what was important, to see why things happened as they did, and to write history instead of newspapers.