Early Graphic Design Periodicals in America

Abstract

Trade magazines function as professional communication networks, defining professions in themselves and to others. Over time, by their choice of subjects and presentation, they reveal, either explicitly or implicitly, the history of a profession, its changing practices, and its relationship to the larger culture. While graphic design was only recognized as a separate profession in the early twentieth century, its antecedents are to be found in the journals of related professions. American graphic design magazines first appeared in the 1920s. But the graphic designer's interests in typography, layout, and illustration were addressed much earlier in publications for less specialized and more diverse audiences. Magazines devoted to printing, typography, advertising, and fine arts, and, to a lesser degree, to book publishing and paper manufacture, were all considered relevant to the interests of the graphic designer well into the twentieth century. The present article traces the development of graphic design by analysing the editorial content of those early periodicals that were forerunners of American graphic design journals. It identifies the themes with which they were concerned and that shaped the beginnings of the profession. Raising educational and craft standards, supporting workers' rights, monitoring and standardizing business practices, publicizing the importance of advertising to America's economy, and raising aesthetic standards were important issues at different times and for different kinds of journals. The profound technological changes of the industrial revolution dramatically altered the practices of all the crafts and led to increased specialization. Printers, advertisers, and artist-illustrators sought to define their relationship to new concepts of applied art and design. English design theory and practice, British Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts movement and William Morris's Kelmscott Press influenced both the ideas and the look of American trade publications.2 In particular, these movements reawakened an interest in typography and fine printing. By oo900, however, some of Morris's earliest admirers adopted a more classical style. Both styles continued to inspire private press printers, as well as commercial jobbers and advertisers, into the second decade of the century. The two currents are reflected in the trade magazines. This study focuses on magazines that were published either in the United States, or were important to graphic designers in the United States, from their inception in the mid-185os until the early 1920S. It suggests that the graphic design periodicals had their beginnings in three types of publications: those serving the printing trades and type foundries, the advertising business, and the fine arts. Once the profession achieved a more clearly defined identity in the 1920s, journals devoted exclusively to graphic design appeared. Publications are grouped into three major categories: printers' and type founder's journals, advertising journals, and art journals. The discussion proceeds chronologically within the categories.