Graphics

Graphics are visual images or designs on a surface like a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone. They help us inform, illustrate, or entertain. Today, graphics also include pictures that show data, like in design, manufacturing, typesetting, and educational or fun software. When images are made by a computer, they are called computer graphics.

Examples of graphics are photographs, drawings, line art, mathematical graphs, line graphs, charts, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings, or other images. Graphics often mix text, illustration, and color. Graphic design might only use typography, like in a brochure, flyer, poster, website, or book, to make things clear, connect with culture, or create a special style.

Graphics can be useful or artistic. Artistic graphics might be a real version, like a photograph, or an artist’s way of showing important parts. They can also be used in architecture.

History

Main article: History of graphic design

The earliest graphics known to people are cave paintings and markings on boulders, bone, ivory, and antlers, created during the Upper Palaeolithic period from 40,000 to 10,000 B.C. or earlier. These markings often recorded details about the stars, seasons, and time. Some of the oldest known graphics come from almost 6,000 years ago and include engraved stone tablets and ceramic cylinder seals, marking the start of keeping records for counting and organizing things. Records from Egypt go back even further, using papyrus to plan the building of pyramids; they also used slabs of limestone and wood.

In art, "graphics" often means work made with lines and shades, rather than painting.

Drawing

Main articles: Drawing and Technical drawing

Drawing usually means making marks on a surface by pressing a tool or moving a tool across the surface. This creates a guided and instrumental form of drawing.

Printmaking

Main article: Printmaking

Woodblock printing, including pictures, first appeared in China after paper was invented (about A.D. 105). In the West, the main ways to print have been woodcut, engraving, and etching, but there are many other methods.

Etching

Main article: Etching

Etching is an intaglio way of printmaking where the picture is cut into the surface of a metal plate using acid. This method of printing is thought to have been started by Daniel Hopfer (c. 1470–1536) from Augsburg, Germany.

Line art

Main article: Line art

Line art is a general term for any picture made up of straight and curved lines placed against a plain background, without using shades of color to show objects in two or three dimensions. Line art is usually in one color, but the lines can be different colors.

Illustration

Main article: Illustration

An illustration is a visual picture such as a drawing, painting, photograph, or other piece of art that focuses more on the subject than the style. The goal of an illustration is to explain or decorate a story, poem, or piece of information (like a newspaper article), often by showing what is described in the text. The editorial cartoon, also called a political cartoon, is an illustration with a political or social message.

Illustrations can be used for many things, such as:

• giving faces to characters in a story
• showing examples of something described in a school book
• giving step-by-step instructions in a guide
• showing feelings in a story
• connecting brands to ideas of self-expression and creativity
• making someone laugh or smile
• just for fun

Graphs

Main article: Chart

See also: Information graphics

A graph or chart is a picture that shows tabular or numeric information. Charts help make large amounts of data and the connections between different parts of the data easier to understand.

Diagrams

Main article: Diagram

A diagram is a simple and organized picture that shows ideas, things, buildings, relationships, statistics, and more, to help explain a topic.

Symbols

Main article: Symbol

A symbol is a picture that stands for a concept or amount; it is an idea, object, or quality. In deeper thinking, all ideas are symbolic, and pictures for these ideas are tokens that represent a symbolic meaning or symbolism.

Maps

Main article: Map

A map is a simple picture of a place, used to help find your way. It usually shows a two-dimensional, geometrically accurate picture of a three-dimensional space.

Photography

Main article: Photography

One way photography is different from other graphics is that a photographer mainly captures a single moment in real life, without much change. But a photographer can choose where to point the camera and the angle, and may also use different lenses to change how the picture looks or filters to change the colors. Recently, digital photography has made it possible to change pictures in many fast and strong ways.

Engineering drawings

Main article: Engineering drawing

An engineering drawing is a special kind of drawing used to clearly show all the details needed for engineered objects. It is usually made following special rules for how it should look, what words to use, and how lines should be drawn.

Computer graphics

Main article: Computer graphics

There are two kinds of computer graphics: raster graphics, where each small part (pixel) is separate (like in a digital photograph), and vector graphics, where math is used to draw lines and shapes, which are then shown on the screen. Using math makes the graphics sharp and often smaller files.

In 1950, the first computer screen was connected to MIT's Whirlwind I computer to show simple pictures. This led to MIT's TX-0 and TX-2, and interactive computing, which made people more interested in computer graphics in the late 1950s. In 1962, Ivan Sutherland made Sketchpad, a new program that changed how people could work with computers.

In the mid-1960s, big projects about computer graphics started at MIT, General Motors, Bell Labs, and Lockheed Corporation. Douglas T. Ross from MIT made an advanced computer language for graphics. S.A.Coons, also at MIT, and J. C. Ferguson at Boeing, began working on curved surfaces. GM made their DAC-1 system, and other companies like Douglas, Lockheed, and McDonnell also made big advances.

In the late 1970s, home computers became stronger and could show both simple and complex shapes and designs. In the 1980s, artists and graphic designers started using personal computers as serious tools for creating, saving time and drawing more accurately than other ways.

3D computer graphics began being used in video games in the 1970s with Spasim for the PLATO system in 1974 and FS1 Flight Simulator in 1979. Atari, Inc.'s Battlezone (1980) showed 3D graphics to many people. Other games with wireframe and flat-shaded 3D graphics appeared in the 1980s.

Computers from the 1980s and later often used a graphical user interface (GUI) to show data and information with symbols, pictures, and images, instead of just text. 3D computer graphics and tools for making them became easier for game and film makers in the late 1980s with SGI computers.

3D graphics became more popular in the 1990s in video games, multimedia, and animation. In 1995, Toy Story, the first full-length computer-made animation movie, was shown in theaters. Since then, computer graphics have become more detailed and realistic because of better computers and better 3D modeling software.

Web graphics

In the 1990s, Internet speeds got faster, and web browsers that could show pictures were made, the first one being Mosaic. Websites started using the GIF format to show small graphics like banners, ads, and buttons on web pages. Today, modern web browsers can show JPEG, PNG, and now SVG images, in addition to GIFs. SVG and VML support in some browsers now makes it possible to show vector graphics that stay clear at any size.

Today, web graphics can be made with tools like Adobe Photoshop, the GIMP, or Corel Paint Shop Pro. Users of Microsoft Windows have MS Paint, which many think has fewer features because it is a simple drawing tool and not a full graphics tool.

Many websites and platforms have been made for web graphics artists and their communities. More and more people create pictures for internet forums—like signatures after their posts—and other digital art, such as changing photos and big graphics. As game makers create communities around their games, many new websites are being made to share graphics for fans to show their support for these games in their gaming profiles.

Uses

Graphics are visual elements that help point people to information. They make ideas easier to understand or more interesting. Popular magazines, such as Time, Wired and Newsweek, use many graphics to attract readers.

In computing, graphics create a graphical interface for users. They are one of the five key parts of multimedia technology. Graphics are also a main way to advertise goods or services.

Graphics are often used in business and economics to make financial charts and tables. The idea of business graphics started in the late 1970s when personal computers could draw graphs and charts. These graphics can show changes over time.

Advertising is a big use of graphics. Artists often think about advertising when creating art to help sell their work.

Using graphics for political reasons—like cartoons, graffiti, posters, and flags—has been done for centuries and continues today. The Northern Irish murals are one example. Another example is Shepard Fairey's 2008 U.S. presidential election Barack Obama "Hope" poster. It started online but was soon seen on streets across the United States.

Graphics are very important in textbooks, especially for subjects like geography, science, and mathematics. They help show ideas such as the human anatomy. Diagrams label photos and pictures too.

Educational animation is a growing field in graphics. Animated graphics work better than still images for showing things that change over time.

The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary uses graphics to make reading more fun and easier to understand. In an encyclopedia, graphics help explain ideas and give examples. For graphics to work well in learning, the student must understand them. This ability to understand graphics is part of graphicacy.

Computer graphics are used in most new movies, especially big-budget ones. Films that use lots of computer graphics include The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the Harry Potter films, Spider-Man and War of the Worlds.

Graphics education

Most schools, colleges, and universities teach students about graphic design and art. They use many ways to teach, mixing practical skills with thinking about what people need.

Some courses focus more on traditional skills like drawing and printing. Others focus on digital skills. Some teach students how to come up with new ideas for projects. Even though these courses are different, students and teachers usually think of themselves as graphic designers. They often use teaching methods from schools like the Bauhaus in Germany or Vkhutemas in Russia, which combine many skills with learning about the world of visual culture.

Noted graphic designers

Some people have had a big impact on graphics and design. Aldus Manutius made the first italic type, a style still used in desktop publishing and graphic design. April Greiman is known for her work in poster design. Paul Rand was a leader in design, creating famous logos for companies like IBM, NeXT, and UPS. In the 1700s, William Caslon designed many typefaces that people still use today.