Week 1

Week 1

The Victorian Age

The Victorian age was the time of Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria was a strong advocate of moral and religious beliefs. In design this translated into a love of decoration and clutter. Victorian graphic design had a number of distinct characteristics. Some of these were:

· Symmetry

· Intricate and detailed borders and frame

· Hand drawn typography

· The use of many different fonts

· Typography on a curve

· Type on an illustrated cloth banner

Victorian graphic design had an overall romantic feel, expressed though the large use of intricate, detailed illustrations and lots of decoration. Victorian posters were always very highly decorated as well as crowded. Many Victorian designers would fill the whole page with decorations and text, leaving very little white space.

As time went on, graphic design because simpler, posters had simpler borders, less decoration and overall cleaner layouts. Even though clean and simple is still the current fashion, Companies may purposely include Victorian characteristics in their designs. This makes the design seem classic and suggests stability, quality and durability within the company.

An example of Victorian Graphic Design