Findings: The Digital Revolution

After the Industrial Revolution, another event that brought the huge transformation of human activity is the explosion of electronic and computer technology. In 1990s, desktop publishing (DTP) was invented and enable user to control the whole workflow in creating digital documents within a desktop computer screen. Apple Computer as the pioneer of desktop publishing had invented the Mackintosh Computer, while Adobe Systems published PostScript and PageMaker, computer programmes for creating vector graphics and page layouts (Meggs and Purvis, 2006).

Despite allowing designers to change the layout anytime easily, DTP also reduces production time and money consumed instead of handcrafting. It provides graphic designer a bigger opportunity and possibility in exploring the manipulation of design basics. As the trend is shifting from print to powerful digital screen, many designers had embrace the technology such as April Greiman.

My thinking

This is another example of technology innovation that optimize the creation of art and design. It is interesting to observe that not every designer will appreciate the new technology when it was first released. After years of developing, their shock toward the new stuff reduced and they embrace DTP as well. If we were the designer at the time when DTP first appeared in public's sight, are we able to recognized and predict its potential? It teaches us an important lesson to be brave in exploring the new possibilities.

Reference

Meggs, P.B. and Purvis, A.W. (2005) Megg’s History of Graphic Design. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Accessed: 3 August 2016)

Findings: The Medium is the Message

1. The content of any medium is always another medium.
2. Medium shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.
3. Medium blinds us to the character of content.

My Thinking
As an example of my understanding: radio podcast is a medium, while its content - music or talk show are another medium. It can affect how audience understand the content as well. The theory can relate to the difference of medium to present typography. The leading medium in this decade is digital media which totally change the daily lifestyle of modern people today. What makes the difference of digital and traditional typography? The most obvious feature that makes them unique is the interactive function of digital screen and solid paper texture of the book.

As they are totally medium in terms of medium, they cannot replace each other although digital seem dominant and it slowly replaced other material. Their condition of existing together is similar like amalgamation that we learnt in Hubungan Etnik, they existing together but does not bring harm to each other, they make the typography field interesting as readers or viewers get to appreciate the different form of art in this century.