The 10 Essential Milestones in Graphic Production

The design process is a very tougher process in which all of us designers must go through in order to produce the most effective, professional outcomes for our work. This makes it interesting to look back through time about production and different processes and styles which have come about through the years; as it definitely has effected and enabled the variety art and designs produced over the periods. Creating some of the essential milestones in graphic production.

The history of print and graphic production has gone through thousands of different forms, enabling new, efficient, artistic forms of design to be created. Here are 10 milestones in which I feel have and will be the most influential over the years for my work and for several other designers.

1. The Gutenberg press – a form of flat bed printing press, allowing engraved metal blocks to transfer ink onto a flat bedded media(blocks previously created from wood) This process allowed the first form of rapid mass production and the start of a revolution of printing.

2. Lithography – the process of etching away an image and then being able to transfer the image several times over onto a smooth surface. This process is used today to produce high volumes of design, for thing like posters, newspapaers, packaging etc.

                          

3. Rotary printing press – The use of two rotating cylinders to transfer print onto paper. This process is now called flexography. This method can be used for printing on a variety of medias including plastics; metallic papers etc, but is now mostly used for food packaging.

4. Photographic process – an image forming device of recording a medium, enabling people to create a durable image. Photography has advanced over time from black and white to colour creating so many variations in between only creating more variations for us.

5. Screen printing – a technique of transferring ink through a woven screen and through a stencil underneath, creating blocks of colour around the stencilled image. This technique has been around for thousands of years and has been used by some of the world leading artists (Andy Worehole and Hiroshige)

6. WWW – the world wide web allowing people all over the globe to network and communicate their images and text across to each other and the whole world. As designers this is particularly important milestone for us, to showcase our work as well as have a chance of recruitment.

7. Inkjet printing – Allows images and documentation to be printed out in high quality in our homes and studios. It allows imagery to be printed at a high quality, be professional and be of a sellable quality.

8. Adobe Software – these are programmes which are must knows in the design industry, including Photoshop allowing you to simply manipulate images to creating masterpieces from scratch, InDesign allowing the production of professional design materials(magazines), Illustrator, After Effects several more programmes.  

9. Windows processing system – allows us to create and function some of our most basic, day to day needs on a computer. It enables effective use of the computer system and to enable effective production of documentation and processing.

10. 3D imagery - The latest form of technology, still being developed to enabling the creation and viewing of 3d imagery on a flat surface. It allows the creation of illusion of depth in an image.  This is a very modern process which could revolutionise the graphic milestones from today.

LITHOGRAPHY - a few quick snaps of my works :

I have done this process a few times- by indenting polystyrene, this method is less durable yet still creates a very nice effect.  Especially in b&w it adds that slight rustic feel. The second method is etching into a harder more durable material of lino. It allows you to repeatedly use this lino as well as create detailed and textured images. You can choose to add as much detailing as you would like and overall for very time I have used it, it has proven to be a success and effective piece for my project.

SCREEN PRINTING - a few quick snaps of my works :

A few of my screen print i snapped up for you to see. You can print on a range of materials and create a variety of variations. What I particularly find interesting is the addition of textures and off edges to what may start off with the idea of having a block, matt colour on Photoshop.