History of visual communication (graphic design) Essay

History of visual communication (graphic design) - Essay Example The development of visual communication did not originate from the WIMP (Windows Icon Mouse Pointer) interface which is most commonly seen system for controlling computers. Rather, the origins of the communication style come from cave paintings and drawing made in prehistoric times where certain ideas and concepts had been shared by the original dwellers of the caves to individuals who came after them. Even though the people who inhabited the caves and we are separated by a few thousand years we can still understand the basic message which is being conveyed by the image (Solymar, 1999). The message and pictures themselves become complicated as time goes by and the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt contain pictographic writings on the walls of the monuments they created to the clay tablets used for record keeping. In time, the medium changed along with the form of the message and things like animal skins, bone fragments, vellum, tree bark and papyrus began to be used as means for recording information. Even though the ancients had refined paper to a great extent, they did not have the ability to duplicate the same information hundreds of times with ease (Solymar, 1999). With the advent of Christianity, knowledge became a premium requirement for many people and the demand for documents that contained religious information was increased. Books and notes were copied in hand with a significant amount of labor involved in the process but that labor could be carried out by anyone even if they were illiterate as long as they could see and copy characters. On the other hand, it was far easier to transfer knowledge through visual images and the use of color in various pictures that explain certain stories (Ivins, 1969). The medieval ages perhaps represent the golden age of visual imagery since every image had several layers of meaning for the story connected to the image and even the individual colors of the persons portrayed in the pictures had one