Much of the nineteenth century is known to be revolved around seeing the bible as the exact truth, morals and the status of wealth. The Victorian age is notably well known for its development in arts, science and mechanical inventions. The industrial revolution brought about materialism and advertising created the “need”.

Here I have found an illustrated advertisement from the 19th century for "Brooke's Soap" found in the book "Consuming Angels". "Brooke’s Soap" is made out to look and feel heavenly. It is reflective of the important morals of the time, by being presented to you in a passage from the bible. But there is also a sense of playfulness or mischief brought to you by the monkey. I have to wonder if weather or not some people would be offended, although during Queen Victoria’s reign there was an amplified criticism of the Bible, because of Darwin’s theories and scientific advances.

Loeb, Lori. Consuming Angels. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print.

Renaissance Style

Renaissance designers had a fondness for floral decoration so here I have tried to design both an illustration and a drop cap keeping this in mind. For the illustration I would like to note how hard it is to draw a mirror image. Looking at the designs from the renaissance, I have no idea how they would be able to do this so precisely with out a computer! Grids I’m assuming… But then they would have to cut it into wood!

A drop cap is used at the beginning of a paragraph when the text first starts and runs several lines deep. Drop caps were used at the time in manuscripts and books of the renaissance providing decoration. I attempted to create a roman typeface with large serifs.

Both images are inspired by Erhard Ratdolt; I used more naturalistic forms as well as reversed forms to capture his design essence.

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics in the 21st century

Here I have found a piece of contemporary design referentially influenced by Egyptian Hieroglyphics. It is a poster for the London 2012 Olympic games using pictograms to represent all of the athletic events. Created by the organizing committee the pictograms are simplistic and easily depicted giving no need to typography. Pictograms that depicted objects or beings are what Hieroglyphs consisted of, they can be found in everyday life to represent or convey resemblance to a physical object.

http://www.allposters.co.uk/-sp/London-2012-Olympics-Pictograms-Posters_i7347678_.htm