HISTORY OF DESIGN

Submitted To: Mam Farwah

Submitted By: Mahnoor Akhter

Department: Graphic Design (M)

Roll No: 17937

Semester: 3rd

Institute of Art and Design GC, Faisalabad

INCUNABULA
History:
• It’s a book or single sheet that was printed, now we came in a printing form after
handwritten style to spread it. It may be called single sheet or a book or may be in the
form of image but not in hand-written form
• The year 1500 as the limit of the period of incunabula was first adopted in 1643 by
Johann Saubert which includes the first known catalog of a collection of such books
• The origin of the word is the latin incunabula for swaddling clothes means to wrap in
clothes used for early stages of something
• The most important contributions to the printing of incunabula came from Germany and
Italy
• Before the year 1501 in Europe these are usually very rare only verified by experts

Explanation
• The first recorded use of incunabula as printing term is in a pamphelet by bernin
published in 1639 which include the phrase the first infancy of printing
• It is a noteable development in printing press. It is refered to the earliest printed books
where still some books were copying by hand written
• The gradual spread of printing ensured that there was a great variety in the text chosen
for print and the styles appeared
• They derived typeface from gothic scripts of Europe but some were derived from italy.
Some fonts are like hand written. It is difficult to convert hand written fonts into digital
form because of the variation of each alphabet’s stroke as in printing the stroke of all
alphabets should be same.
• It is mainly influenced by illuminated manuscripts as it includes both the text and
illustrations but the major difference is that it has a specific color palette than
illuminated manuscripts (mostly black,white,red) In incunabula the borders and initials
are not darker like illuminated manuscripts
• Famous incunabula include wooden work bible of 1455. The design of the book shows
all the characteristics of the transitional period still resembled the medieval’s
manuscripts in which the focus is ornamentation

Types:
• Xylographic
• Typography