Eskilson “19th century an Expanding field” tutorial 2

Throughout “19th century and expanding field” Eskilson is linking major events in the world to the changing of design showing that these events are crucial turning points in design often leading to designers having to adapted to the new social structures. One prime example of this is the Art Nouveau movement during the Industrial Revolution. Through the revolution mass printing was able to be achieved allowing all levels of society to be able to afford information leading to literal and communication to be greatly improved ultimately forever changing design. Many people use this movement to challenge and question the repressive the government such as Charles Philpon who wrote books such as ” La silhouettes” and “La caricature”. Both these Books where the first big impact where it showed the power of design and printing.this later lead the the government introducing laws that carried heavy fines and imprisonment if the book was to be critical of the government. This movement also allowed women to gain more independence in both society and urban life. I believe that Eskilson is showing that through these new ways of communication it allows different ways to express ideas and independence which leads to the complete change of legacy for design due to these new ways of communication.

Through the introduction of Lithography a process invented by Alois Senfielder images where able to be produced through chemical reactions at large quantity for a low cost . However this negatively impacted illustrators at the time causing them to create new ways of design such as the surreal movement which allowed different ways of communcating and again changing the legacy and idea of what design is. Another example of design changing is the introduction of photography which forever changed design aesthetic/function. Photography of the 20th century allowed middle class people to have inexpensive images which allowed new way of communicating ideas. One example of photography being use to communicating ideas is in a photo of Abraham Lincoln taken by Mathew Brady as he campaigned in New York as seen in figure 1. It appeared in newspapers all across New York and was a revolutionary way to communicate his political views. This photography greatly helped Lincolns campaign.

Ultimately through Eskilsons “The Nineteenth Century: An Expanding Field” he shows us that understanding new forms of communications can extremely change design and society allowing societal ranks to change and for designers to constantly be on their toes and needing to adapted to the new changes of society in order to communicate their ideas in the way they want to be portrayed.