Study Guide to Accompany Meggs' History of Graphic Design

284 Pages·2006·1.12 MB·English

Study Guide to Accompany
Meggs’ History of Graphic Design
Fourth Edition
Prepared by

Susan Merritt
Professor and Head of Graphic Design
School of Art, Design, and Art History
San Diego State University (SDSU)
With assistance from Chris McCampbell and Jenny Yoshida
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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DISCLAIMER

The information in this book has been derived and extracted from a multitude of sources including
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responsibility of users to apply their professional knowledge in the application of the information
presented in this book, and to consult original sources for current and detailed information as needed, for
actual design situations.
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This material may be reproduced for educational purposes by students using the text Meggs: Meggs’
History of Graphic Design, Fourth Edition, (ISBN: 0471-69902-0)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Author Biography
Part One The Prologue to Graphic Design: The visual message from
prehistory through the medieval era
Chapter 1 The Invention of Writing
Chapter 2 Alphabets
Chapter 3 The Asian Contribution
Chapter 4 Illuminated Manuscripts
Part Two A graphic renaissance: The origins of European typography and
design for printing
Chapter 5 Printing Comes to Europe
Chapter 6 The German Illustrated Book
Chapter 7 Renaissance Graphic Design
Chapter 8 An Epoch of Typographic Genius

Part Three The Bridge to the Twentieth Century—The Industrial Revolution:
The impact of industrial technology upon visual communications
Chapter 9 Graphic Design and the Industrial Revolution
Chapter 10 The Arts and Crafts Movement and Its Heritage
Chapter 11 Art Nouveau
Chapter 12 The Genesis of Twentieth-Century Design
Part Four The Modernist Era: Graphic design in the first half of the twentieth
century
Chapter 13 The Influence of Modern Art
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Chapter 14 Pictorial Modernism
Chapter 15 A New Language of Form
Chapter 16 The Bauhaus and the New Typography
Chapter 17 The Modern Movement in America
Part Five The Age of Information: graphic design in the global village
Chapter 18 The International Typographic Style
Chapter 19 The New York School
Chapter 20 Corporate Identity and Visual Systems
Chapter 21 The Conceptual Image
Chapter 22 National Visions within a Global Dialogue
Chapter 23 Postmodern Design
Chapter 24 The Digital Revolution and Beyond

Answer Key
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Chris McCampbell and Jenny Yoshida for their assistance in the
development of these online materials. They provided pertinent student perspectives,
and their insight, diligence, and calming personalities were invaluable. Without their
help, completing this project would have been even more difficult than it was.
I am grateful to my friend and colleague Michelle Hays, assistant professor of
communication design, Department of Art and Design, Texas State University, San
Marcos, for her guidance and expertise in matters of teaching and learning.
Special thanks to my husband and partner in design, Calvin Woo, for his unwavering
support; Senior Editor, Margaret Cummins, and Assistant Developmental Editor, Lauren
LaFrance, of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. for their patience and encouragement; and
copyeditor Andrew Miller for his expertise.
I would like to acknowledge Phil Meggs for his contributions to design education and for
making all of us aware through his book of the rich history of graphic design.
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Author Biography
Susan Merritt
Professor and Head of Graphic Design
School of Art, Design, SM and Art History
San Diego State University (SDSU)
Professor Merritt teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the School of Art,
Design, and Art History at San Diego State University. She is a design principal at
CWA, Inc. in San Diego, and co-founder, with business partner Calvin Woo, of the
Design Innovation Institute, a nonprofit organization committed to interdisciplinary
design research and education. Professor Merritt is also co-author, with Jack Davis, of
The Web Design Wow! Book, and has served on the board of the San Diego chapter of
the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), on the chapter’s advisory board, its
education committee, and as curriculum director for AIGA’s national Creativity Kits
Project. She is the founder of the AIGA student group at SDSU, and a Friend of the
International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA). SM Friend is a
“membership” category. Technically, individuals cannot be members since only
organizations are members. Everyone knows the organization as ICOGRADA.
Professor Merritt was a graduate student from 1971 to 1976 at the
Kunstgewerbeschule-Basel (Basel School of Design), where she studied with Armin
Hofmann, Wolfgang Weingart, André Gürtler, and Kurt Hauert. While living in Europe for
six years, and later in Hawaii for five years, where she was on the faculty of the
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Professor Merritt developed a deep appreciation for
different cultures and their communities. She continues to travel and research the role
of visual communication design within the context of culture, with an emphasis on
consumer packaging design. While at Basel, Professor Merritt became interested in
letterpress printing, which spawned an interest in book arts. She spent a month in
residence at the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin,
where she studied the museum’s collection of historical wood type, and printed
broadsides, on the museum’s letterpresses.
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Chapter 1 – The Invention of Writing
Introduction, 4
Prehistoric visual communication, 6
The cradle of civilization, 6
The earliest writing, 6
Mesopotamian visual identification, 9
Egyptian hieroglyphs, 10
Papyrus and writing, 12
The first illustrated manuscripts, 14
Egyptian visual identification, 17

Key Terms (in order of appearance; the first page number of their appearance is
listed)

Ideograph, page 4
Petroglyph, page 4, (Fig. 1-2)
Pictograph, page 4
Substrate, page 4
Mesopotamia, page 6
Ziggurat, page 6
Cuneiform, page 7, (Fig. 1-7)
Phonogram, page 7
Rebus writing, page 7
Scribe, page 7
Edubba, page 8
1
Cylinder seal, page 9, (Fig. 1-12)
Stele, page 9, (Figs. 1-10 and 1-11)
Determinatives, page 10
Hieroglyphics, page 10, (Fig. 1-15)
Obelisk, page 10
Rosetta Stone, page 10, (Fig. 1-16)
Ankh, page 12
Cartouche, page 12, (Fig. 1-18)
Papyrus, page 12
The Book of the Dead, page 14, (Fig. 1-25)
Coffin texts, page 14
Demotic script, page 14, (Fig. 1-24)
Hieratic script, page 14
Papyrus manuscripts, page 14
Pyramid text, page 14
Recto, page 14
Verso, page 14

Key People and their Major Contributions (in order of appearance; the first
page number of their appearance is listed)

Sumerians, page 6
Hammurabi, page 8
Dr. Thomas Young, page 10, (Fig. 1-17)
Jean-François Champollion (A.D. 1790–1832), page 10
Study Test

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Chapter 1 – Study Questions
Multiple Choice
1. It is not known precisely when or where the biological species of conscious,
thinking people, Homo sapiens, emerged. It is believed that we evolved from a
species that lived in the southern part of __________.
A. Europe
B. Africa
C. Australia
D. China
2. These early hominids ventured out onto the grassy plains and into __________
as the forests slowly disappeared in that part of the world. In the tall grass, they
began to stand erect and their hands developed an ability to carry food and hold
objects.
A. canyons
B. caves
C. trees
D. mountains
3. Found near Lake Turkana in _________, a nearly three-million-year-old stone
that had been sharpened into an implement proves the thoughtful and deliberate
development of a technology—a tool—which may have been used to dig for
roots or to cut away flesh from dead animals for food.
A. Kenya
B. Spain
C. France
D. Turkey
4. A number of quantum leaps provided the capacity to organize a community and
gain some measure of control over human destiny. Speech—the ability to make
sounds in order to communicate—was an early skill developed by the species on
the long evolutionary trail from its archaic beginnings. __________ is the visual
counterpart of speech.
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A. Talking
B. Painting
C. Writing
D. Drawing
5. The invention of writing brought people the luster of civilization and made it
possible to preserve hard-won knowledge, experiences, and thoughts. The
development of visible language had its earliest origins in ___________.
A. letterforms
B. abstract color fields
C. simple pictures
D. hieroglyphs
6. From the early Paleolithic to the Neolithic period (35,000–4000 B.C.), early
Africans and Europeans left paintings in caves, including the Lascaux caves in
France and __________.
A. the grassy plains of southern Africa
B. Lake Turkana in Kenya
C. Altamira in Spain
D. the Persian Gulf region
7. These early cave drawings were probably created for three of the reasons below.
Which does NOT belong? ___________
A. art
B. ritual
C. survival
D. utility
8. The animals and objects painted on the caves are ___________elementary
pictures or sketches representing the things depicted.
A. petroglyphs
B. ideographs
C. phonograms
D. pictographs
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