18th Century
The development of communication design is directly related to the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment. The world could no longer be seen as based on circular processes of life, related to the equally circular structure of heaven and hell, but as a chain of causalities.
The meaning of the world before the Enlightenment could only be discovered by tracing the similarities that must be interpreted in order to read the will of God.
Since the Enlightenment, the purpose of the world has been to improve and optimize all naturally given functionalities in order to create the most perfect world possible. Communication design has been committed to this idea since the 18th century.
Pages from 1550 Annotazione on Sacrobosco's De sphaera mundi, showing the Ptolemaic system:
If we understand Communication Design as a discipline that, as its name suggests, is concerned with the design of communicative processes, we can say that the profession began with the Encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772 by Denis Diderot.
The Figurative system of human knowledge from Diderot's Encyclopédie, 1752.
Linné's method for classification of animals, 1735:
The idea is: Everything can be understood and is ultimately reasonable to the extent that we unfold the chains of causality and systematise what we have found according to their progression.
This applies not only to the emerging sciences, but also to the collective and personal shaping of the relationship between the individual and society. It is in this context that Immanuel Kant's definition of enlightenment should be understood:
"The liberation of man from his self-inflicted immaturity.”
Self-inflicted in the sense that every human being is capable of autonomous thought.
Communication design is the concrete form that this takes:
In the practical work of communication design in the 18th century, we find for the first time a systematic description of the what, i.e. the particular object or subject, and a logical argumentation of the why and how.
The task of communication design is not only to illustrate the how, but also to systematise the relationships of the why in the how by summarising all related information in a table.
We still use the same process today when it comes to designing information and information graphics.
Your task:
Choose a physical or media object (or product).
Design the presentation of the product according to the principles found in Didero's Encyclopedia (do in-depth research on this topic):
- Divide the object into its parts.
- Name the parts.
- Show how the object is used in a process.
etc.
In addition, write a brief description of the construction, functionality, and use of the object (or product).
This task is the foundation for the next two tasks in this lecture.
In your research, writing, and creative execution, you will work according to the principles of quality design excellence.
Documentation of the lecture