GRAPHIC DESIGN
LEVEL ONE
Vatican Vergil Two scenes are depicted in one illustration and in a book, among the first in Europe to accomplish this.
Book of Durrow Opening page of the Gospel of Saint Mark. Linked into a ligature, an "I" and an "N" becomes an aesthetic form of interlaced threads and coiling spiral motifs.
Movable Type Not quite what Gutenberg worked with but the idea is the same. The letters are backwards reading so that when they are struck downward, they print right-facing.
Vatican Vergil Two scenes are depicted in one illustration and in a book, among the first in Europe to accomplish this.
Illuminated Manuscripts
Here is a handy time-line with pictures to help us understand how this all came to pass.
Bold text indicates photographs with captions are included.
330 AD — Constantine moves Roman capital to Constantinople (formerly Istanbul)
425 AD — Vatican Vergil
500 AD — Uncial lettering flourishes
570 AD — Birth of the prophet Muhammad
600 AD — Insular Script
680 AD — Book of Durrow
698 AD — Lindisfarne Gospels
751 AD — Arabs learn paper making from Chinese prisoners
800 AD — Book for Kells, Coronation Gospels
960 AD — Westminister Abbey is built
1066 AD — Battle of Hastings produces William the Conqueror as King of England
Doomsday Book begins (surveys of land, who owns it & what sort of men)
1086 AD — Doomsday Book complete (used for over-taxation of the people)
1163 AD — Notre Dame Cathederal construction begins in Paris
1192 AD — King Richard I out on Crusades (insert Arthurian legend here)
1209 AD — Cambridge University is founded
1215 AD — King John signs the Magna Carta (he didn't want to, took away power)
1265 AD — Marco Polo travels to China
1300 AD — Ormesby Psalter
1320 AD — Firearms are used in Europe
1348 AD — The Black Death arrives in England
1387 AD — Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales
1413 - 1416 AD — Les tres riches heures du duc de Berry
*** LEARN THIS LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT ***
1450 AD — Printing with movable type in Germany (Johannes Gutenberg)
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Johannes Gutenberg perfected modular type.
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He used metal instead of wood (it lasts longer)
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Experimented with different metals
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Needed one soft enough to make a mold
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Needed one hard enough to withstand pressure of the press
How Did He Do It?
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Carve letter on end of steel bar
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That letterform is struck into a copper bar, making a matrix
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Matrix is placed into type mold
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Molten metal poured in to make wrong-reading letter
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Shake mold to eliminate air bubbles, and remove immediately
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Could make about 4000 individual letters per day
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Wrong-reading letter prints right-reading
1491 AD — King Henry VIII is born (he was a real lady killer)