Monday, September 15, 2008

Advertisements During the Industrial Revolution


This is a great example of what advertising looked like during the Industrial Revolution. Many typefaces were used, and even some were hand drawn. Often times the most important text have shadows behind them. A lot of information was crammed into one advertisement. Some information so small that you could hardly read. I have also noticed that most advertisements during this time used distorted text. Mostly in the shape of an arch or a wave. The ads were very decorative with a lot of detailing, often around the edges. Information, images, and text were placed all over the place with no rhyme or reason. Most things I have mentioned are cons, but there are some pros. For instance they knew that to provide emphasis on something they should make it bigger, bolder, or have shadowing to make it pop out at the viewer. They were able to put a lot of information into one ad and it may not be very successful but they have started to group information together and form the beginnings of a layout.

If I growing up during this time I would want a little more layout design to come into play. As a designer I would go to printers and offer design services to them to help get information across clearer. A designer could work for the printer, so that when a company needed an ad made they got a little bit more of a personal experience. When the company came into the printer, a designer would be there to help them formulate an ad. I would also suggest that they use fewer typefaces in one single ad, and try to choose typefaces that are easy to read at first glance. Organizing the information better, and trying to simplify it would be a great start. A good layout is very important. 

The Industrial Revolution brought about a lot of new products and services, and many company's needed advertisements, and they needed them fast. I assume that this is why ads were thrown together like this with little thought about design.

1 comment:

History of Graphic Design said...

I don't car much for the advertisements of the Industrial Revolution era, except for maybe in a purely nostalgic sense. I think that the designers of the time were "font crazy" and so anxious to show off their newly founded typesets that they would metaphorically speaking "throw every bell and whistle" they could fit on the page. I also can understand that printing and paper costs were very expensive, so the idea of white or negative space, seemed like the squandering of a perfect opportunity to add more design. In fact, America was sort of built on the principle that the bigger the better, and capitalism teaches us to always want more. I think the next step from here(Industrial Revolution), you be to create a more sophisticated simplicity. Unfortunately, this thought is not brought forth until the Bauhaus movement.