Victorian: Typography and Commercial Printed Matter Essay

Victorian Period’s Technological Breakthrough’s Three major technological breakthroughs during the Victorian Period were the beginning of the printing press, Victorian typography, and photography with new communication tools. All three of these major breakthrough help build England economy and make it a stronger nation than it can ever imagine it could have been. Each breakthrough has it own type of way that it affected and benefitted the people during this time period and why it played such a huge role. Also during the Victorian Period many would consider this time period to be called the industrial revolution, which was a period in which fundamental changes occurred in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and the social structure in England. This period was a true “revolution,” for it thoroughly destroyed the old manner of doing things; yet the changes that occurred during this period occurred gradually. Conditions that promoted the Industrial Revolution were advances in agricultural techniques and practices that resulted in an increased supply of food and raw materials; changes in industrial organization and new technology resulted in increased production, efficiency and profits and the increase in commerce, foreign and domestic. Many of these conditions were so closely interrelated that increased activity in one spurred an increase in activity in another. ( Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, “The Industrial Revolution” by Joseph A. Montagna) The Victorian commercial printed matter was just characterized by the era’s pervasive ornamentation and careless craftsmanship. With photography and graphic communications have been closely liked beginning with the first experiments to capture and image of nature with a camera! The industrial revolution of printing became a huge success to England. One of the technologies exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (also known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition), which was the new method of color printing. The arrival of color printing had a vast social and economic ramification. Economical color printing ranging from art reproductions to advertising graphics poured from the presses in the millions. After analyzing the colors contained within the original subject, the printer then separated them into a series of printing plates and printed these component colors one by one. The beauty of this process is due to the talented artists who created the original designs, frequently in watercolor, and the skilled craftsmen who traced the original art onto lithographic stones. Once a decision to publish was made, the manuscript was given to a compositor for typesetting. Surviving manuscripts for Thackeray's works, obviously used as setting copy, do not have copy editor's marks or book designer's specifications. Presumably, then, the publisher or the shop foreman or whoever acted as the book's designer talked it over with the compositors, who then implemented the plan as they set type. Each compositor imposed his own version of the house rules, if there were any, onto the portion of the manuscript assigned to him as he set it. (Glynn, Jenifer. Prince of Publishers)
Closely bound to the growth of magazines was the development of advertising agencies. The first true ad agency opened in 1841 in Philadelphia. The surpluses of goods created by the Industrial Revolution led to increased competition in the marketplace, as sellers sought to educate buyers to the virtues of products and services. To this end, advancements in the simultaneous printing of text and image fostered the new medium called advertising. Many images required five, ten, twenty, or even more colors. Colored inks applied to these stones came together in perfect registration, recreating hundreds or thousands of glowing duplicates of the original. (Carey, Charles w., Jr., and Ian C. Friedman “Bell, Alexander Graham.”) The lithography firm, rather than the individual artists or craftsmen was credited on

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Victorian: Typography and Commercial Printed Matter Essay

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