Designing information before designers: print for everyday life in the 19th century

An illustrated talk organised by the St Bride Foundation. IDA members can get concessionary entry.

Thursday 14 January at 7pm
Exhibition preview from 5.30pm

Bridewell Hall, St Bride Foundation, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 8EQ

Admission £7
Concessions (including IDA members) £5
Book online at St Bride events

Paul Stiff, Paul Dobraszczyk, and Mike Esbester suggest that many interactions of everyday life in the nineteenth century were conducted through, and recorded by, ephemeral printed documents, the varied texts and graphic configurations of which made new demands on newly literate audiences.

They think that Victorian 'information design', done before the emergence of professional designers, is an intelligent but little known ancestor of today's graphic design. They aim to show what can be learned about and from it.

Their project explores three themes: time and travel (such as diagrams and timetables); selling and buying (such as catalogues); and questions and answers (such as tax forms). They analyse these artefacts for production and dissemination, and especially for evidence of reception - reading and its consequences.

They are at the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading, and together work on 'Designing information for everyday life, 1815-1914', a research project supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

More at the project blog

The exhibition runs 11-29 January 2010
Exhibition room, St Bride Library

Posted in: Events
Posted on: 21 December 2009