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1500 BCE
Pictographs and symbols in the Lascaux caves in southern France represent the first known visual communication.
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105 BCE
Chinese government official Ts’ai Lun is credited with inventing paper.
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60 BCE
The ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, which contained texts intended to aid the deceased in the afterlife
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1276
Printing arrives in Europe with a paper mill in Fabriano, Italy.
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1450
Johann Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg is credited with perfecting the system for printing type in books.
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1530
Claude Garamond opens the first type foundry, developing and selling fonts to printers.
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The Industrial Revolution begins and sets the stage for advances in graphic design production.
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Author Aloys Senefelder develops lithography, the first "planographic" printing method, which used a flat surface and set the stage for modern offset printing.
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The Arts and Crafts Movement originated in Britain during the late 19th century and was characterized by a style of decoration reminiscent of medieval times.
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The Art Nouveau movement begins, making its way into all types of commercial design and utilized all types of arts.
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Dada was a cultural movement that was concentrated on anti-war politics which then made its way to the art world through art theory, art manifestoes, literature, poetry and eventually graphic design and the visual arts.
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The Bauhaus design school opens in Germany.
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Art Deco, with its bold geometrics and high contrast colors, becomes mainstream.
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The Times New Roman typeface is created by Stanley Morrison and commissioned by the Times of London.
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Legendary graphic designer Paul Rand releases his first book, Thoughts on Design, influencing modern designers for decades to come.
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Pop Art Pop was created by the New York artists as Andy Warho
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Helvetica is developed by Max Miedinger and rapidly becomes a popular and standard typeface.
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The first version of Adobe Photoshop is released, creating a revolution in the way graphic designers work.
