During the first session of my History of graphic design lecture we had covered early art forms in regards to how people expressed themselves which was mostly in the form of cave art or formally known as Petroglyphs. Cave art was done by the early humans who are said to have come from Africa. Yet most of the artworks we had covered were from Europe around two-hundred-thousand to three-hundred- thousand B.C. These art forms are deemed rather advanced and impressive given the time it was done and the tools that were worked with. Even though most of the work is animals, the early humans had shown off what they were familiar with which was of course animals they hunted as well as their tribesmens hand prints, these hand prints were shown on some caves throughout Europe as well.

We had then moved on to Ancient Mesopotamia and the development of written language which was dated around 31 B.C. The Mesopotamian people had practiced cuniform which means wedged shapes they had written cuniform with a stylus which was composed of reeds from the land and had pressed the stylus into a lump of clay that had acted as their surface to write upon. The people who would study the art of cuniform were called scribes and were held in high regard within the city, having jobs related to helping the priests and kings. The scribes would document very important patterns in crops, floods, offerings to Gods, taxes and so fourth they were a huge asset to the society and were extremely knowledgeable.

We had then moved on to the Ancient Egyptians and their use of Hieroglpyhics during what was known as the Bronze age. Hieroglyphics were deemed as the word of the Gods or “Sacred Carvings” this type of writing is complicated to read and scholars till this day have difficultly reading some of the text within Pharohs tombs or scared places of worship. The Egyptians had used a great deal of Bronze for mostly everything they had done such as their writings, warfare, and monuments. Once some had mastered the art of Hieroglyphics, they would form nouns and verbs through drawings or “pictographs” that represent language. They would tell tales of their gods, past leaders or current as well as things that the Ancient Mesopotamian people done such as log taxes, patterns in weather and crops. Hieroglyphics are mostly nouns and that why people to this day are unsure of its readings. We had learned of The Narmer Palette in 3100 B.C and its significance to King Narmer and his accomplishments of unifying Egypt and we had also seen Narmer’s Scribe who is a big part in the significance to the Palette.

Still focusing on Ancient Egypt, we moved onto the Egyptian Book of the dead and its significance to early Egyptian culture. It is a papyrus ( earliest form of paper) scroll that was rather long in length with writings that would be known as a guidebook on how to reach the afterlife after defeating all types of beasts and those who want to take your soul. With your scroll in hand you are to challenged those who want to take your heart and finally reach a place of judgement in which Gods weigh your heart to a feather, if your heart is lighter than the feather on the scale it means you are pure of heart and go to the afterlife, if not you are set to vanish from the earth. It is said that the man who had composed this book had reached the afterlife and has become a legend in the Ancient Egyptian culture.

The last thing we had discussed in class was the introduction of Graphic designer Chip Kidd via a TED talk video on the concepts of clarity and mystery and how one as a graphic designer must balance these ideas in order to compose something eye-catching or interesting. He talks of how something could have a lot of clarity and how it benefits us like the new crossing sings which would be characterized as useful clarity or how something can be done where it is known as unuseful clarity, like the subway service change posters. Kidd then spoke of mystery and how it could benefit a graphic designer speaking about useful mystery in which you give the viewer enough credit to have an idea of a concept or object yet leave them with some mystery, which will make them want to look into more. Then he speaks about the contrast in which unuseful mystery makes things useless and rather silly like the “you’re on Coke” slogan. He ends with the benefits of how a graphic designer should get in touch with their visual vernacular which is the act of turning everyday objects or concepts into something creative. It is molding something into an idea that’s creative, attractive and interesting.