HISTORY OF MOTION GRAPHIC

 

 Since the beginning of our existence, we have endeavored to achieve a sense of motion in art. Since the late 1970s, graphic design has evolved from a static publishing discipline to a practice that incorporates a broad range of communications technologies including film, animation, interactive media, and environmental design.Designing in time and space presents a set of unique, creative challenges that combine the language of graphic design with the dynamic visual language of cinema into a hybridized system of communication.One of the first successful devices for creating the illusion of motion was popular in Europe during the 1820s by London physicist Dr. John A. Paris.This simple apparatus was a small paper disc that was attached to two pieces of string and held on opposite sides.

 

 Each side of the disc contained an image,and the two images appeared to become merged together when the disc was spun rapidly. This was accomplished by twirling the disc to wind the string and gently stretching the strings in opposite directions. As a result, the disc would rotate in one direction and then in the other.The faster the rotation, the more believable the illusion. In 1832, a Belgian physicist named Joseph Plateau introduced the phenakistoscope to Europe.This mechanism consisted of two circular discs mounted on the same axis to a spindle. The outer disc contained vertical slots around the circumference, and the inner disc contained drawings that depicted successive stages of movement. Both discs spun together in the same direction, and when held up to a mirror and peered at through the slots, the progression of images on the second disc appeared to move. Plateau derived his inspiration from Michael Faraday, who invented a device called “Michael Faraday’s Wheel,” and Peter Mark Roget, the compiler of Roget’s Thesaurus.The phenakistoscope was in wide circulation in Europe and America during the nineteenth century until William George Horner invented the zoetrope, which did not require a viewing mirror. Referred to as the “wheel of life,” the zoetrope was a short cylinder with an open top that rotated on a central axis. Long slots were cut at equal distances into the outer sides of the drum, and a sequence of drawings on strips of paper were placed around the inside, directly below the slots. When the cylinder was spun, viewers gazed through the slots at the images on the opposite wall of the cylinder, which appeared to spring to life in an endless loop.