Egyptian Contribution to Graphic Design

Introduction

• By 3100 BCE, Mesopotamian inventions reached Egypt
  • Included cylinder seal, architectural designs, decorative motifs, fundamentals of writing
• Egyptians retained their picture writing system:
  • Inherited Sumerian use of seals but developed unique scarab seals

Scarab Seals

• Scarabs sacred in Egyptian culture (linked to Creator Sun God, Khepri)
• Stones sculpted as scarab beetles
  • Hieroglyphs etched into the flat bottom with a bronze needle

Emergence of Hieroglyphics

• First dynasty unified Egypt (from Delta to Aswan)
• Early pictographic writing discovered on Kingset tablet
  • Evolved into hieroglyphics
• Hieroglyphics used for ~3500 years
• Rosetta Stone (discovered in 1799) vital for deciphering hieroglyphics
  • Inscriptions in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic, and Greek
  • Deciphered to read directions and phonograms

Cartouche and Hieroglyphic System

• Cartouche: Encases individuals’ names, lozenge-shaped with line end
• Alphabetic characters next to hieroglyphs inform phonetics
• Egyptians used Rebus Principle
  • Blend sounds and ideas via pictures and symbols
  • E.g., “bee” + “leaf” = “belief”

Hieroglyphic Characters

• By 1570 BCE, over 700 characters
  • 100 strictly visual (pictographs), rest phonetic (phonograms)
• Learning to read/write conferred respect and privileges (e.g., tax exemption)

Design and Flexibility

• Hieroglyphs adorned diverse surfaces: temple walls, furniture, coffins, clothing, jewelry
• Flexible directions for writing:
  • Left-to-right horizontal or vertical
  • Right-to-left horizontal or vertical

Religious Context and Afterlife Beliefs

• Strong belief in afterlife linked to visual communication
• Funerary hieroglyphics for kings and noblemen
  • Pyramids and sarcophaguses decorated
  • Pictographs believed to transform into real objects in the afterlife

Development of Papyrus and Illustrated Manuscripts

• Papyrus: a paper type from Cyperus papyrus plants
  • Made from horizontal and vertical strips, dried in sun
  • Scrolls made from sheets, first illustrated manuscripts
• Made visual communication accessible to common citizens
  • Funerary papyri (Book of the Dead) for afterlife journey
• Format of Illustrated Papyri:
  • Text and image structured in a consistent grid
  • Early manuscripts: text-dominant, later: narrative-dominant

Legacy

• Egyptian culture and visual communication survived over 3000 years
• Key contributions include: hieroglyphics, papyrus, illustrated manuscripts