Friday, February 27

We had our first styles presentation in class today about the Victorian Era. It was named after the queen of Britain, Queen Victoria and characterized by their intricate and detailed typefaces that had a kind of romantic quality about them. The Victorian Era had a youthful and niave style with their romantic designs or children and puppies and they were also all about socially appropriate behavior and religious morality. The Chinese, Spanish and Islamic cultures influenced their designs a lot as well with the colors and patterns used. The poster design of the time was also important because they used many variations in the styles of typefaces and sizes, using up all the space on the poster and leaving very little or no white space. I like the Victorian style of fancy and romantic typefaces because of the craftsmanship and work that went into designing them and they're asthetically pleasing to me. We also saw a video that showed an old fashioned printing press that was still in use. The people running the press made their own letter forms, designed the pages and put them together by hand. We saw a similar printing press in Tennessee that was a hand-press and they printed posters by putting together the letters and sometimes making new images. I really found those videos interesting and I'm glad I saw them because I really like the idea of the hand-printed designs that those people did and I love that some people out there still care about the style and are putting efforts into keeping it alive in the digital age.
How much does a hand printed poster or something like an invitation go for?