Historical/Contemporary Female Designers Who Used Victorian Historical Style/ Design

This essay is the product of an early investigation into the factors that influenced women’s roles in modern society. Focusing on the era roughly from 1920 to the present. The beginning of “professionalization,” examines the scope and nature of women who created numerous designs based on the Victorian era and how they still impact the involvement in this development. While it is critical to retrieve the identities of individual designers, it is also critical to comprehend some of the conditions and attitudes that shaped the lives of women graphic designers by looking at how they were treated in both contemporaneous and later literature.
The graphic design evolved as a profession during this time, evolving in reaction to societal and technological advancements.

Victorian Era Design/Typography

The victorian-style graphic design proved to be popular in the nineteenth century, particularly for ads. Many of the persuasive commercials were created in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, using Victorian designs and influences. Extensive typography, artwork, and colourful banners are all part of Victorian design. Romantic architecture has a strong sense of nostalgia and romanticism because it was significantly impacted by the past. Victorian graphic design encapsulated and communicated the era’s values. Children, maidens, puppies, and flowers were used to represent sentimentality, nostalgia, and a canon of idealized beauty. (Taylor Kaiser, 2014)

Figure 1

Competition arose as a result of the spike in people wanting to buy new products, and graphic design became involved. Manufacturers created posters, flyers, and pocket cards to persuade customers to buy their product rather than the one down the street in order to compete. (Dylan Spiteri, 2014)

At the same time, new printing machines were developed, resulting in finer print, which gave advertisers and graphic designers more power and creativity. The organized placement of images and text, as well as the brilliant colours, indicate that the posters being created were quite positive. This was done because people were enthralled by new technological advancements, and the Victorians were right in the thick of it. (Dylan Spiteri, 2014)

Figure 2

Louise Fili’s trajectory as a Graphic Designer

Louise Fili is a graphic artist with extensive expertise in drawing, typography, and packaging design.
Fili first travelled to Italy with her parents when she was 16 years old, where she fell in love with the cuisine, type, and Italian culture, all of which continue to influence her work now. (Holly Grobholz, 2018)

“When I was in high school I taught myself calligraphy I still didn’t know what graphic design was, when I got to college I found out about graphic design” (Fili,L. 2012)

Figure 3

She draws inspiration for her type designs from Italy and the Victorian era. This was dubbed ‘Retro’ by certain New York designers. Artists were developing a fondness for quirky and Elegant type that was utilized in the 1920s and 1930s, despite the fact that this form of typography was abandoned after World War II. (Holly Grobholz, 2018)

Fili’s book cover designs exhibit her attention to detail, which assists in her quest to tone down a book cover’s voice while still making it unique and stand out. (Holly Grobholz, 2018) Like the book, Elegantissima is one of the famous Louise’s books.

Figure 4

Fili enjoys resurrecting old fonts and interpreting historical fonts. (Louise Fili,2013) Many examples of her work can be seen that are directly influenced by the design of the Art Deco and Art Nouveau periods.

In 1989 Louise Fili Ltd. was founded when she gave two weeks’ notice at Pantheon Books to focus full-time on her passion restaurant identities and food packaging.
She faced an obvious difficulty as a sole-owner female launching a design business in the 1980s: what to label the studio. she explains. “There was no Internet back then.” She couldn’t be too inventive with the name because people had to look me up in the phone directory. She understood that naming the business after myself would be a liability, but she wanted to convey a clear message: “If you don’t like me because I’m a woman, then you’re not welcome as a client.” (Lee Magill, 2022)

Comparative Designers

Figure 7 –

Jessica Hische’s trajectory as a Graphic Designer

Jessica Hische’s work blends design, typography, illustration, brown sugar, and heavy cream in equal measure. Jessica’s expertise with colour, tone, and shade is amazing. Each design she creates is wonderfully matched. Jessica Hische is an illustrator and typographer based in Brooklyn, New York. She earned a Graphic Design degree from Tyler School of Art in 2006, worked for a number of high-profile companies and clients, and then began a freelancing career in 2009, with great success and at such a young age! (Ray, 2011)

Figure 8

Hische conveys her lively, cheerful, and young soul via her works, whether it’s an illustration or typefaces she’s made, as a young designer in this current period. The expressiveness and slang language’ she used to connect with her audience, clients, and fans have become a good confirmation of her young soul, as seen by what she posted on her website about her career and personal ideas. (Ray, 2021)

Figure 9

Working with Louise Fili

While interning at Headcase Design in Philadelphia near the end of college, Hische began making plans to leave the city. She spent $2,000 on the promotion and created and mailed 250 hand-drawn self-promotional pieces. Louise Fili, New York City’s Restaurant Queen, was the only one who returned the call. She made an employment offer to Hische. (Mattew Porter, 2022)
“She was my design mom,” Hische said of her time at Louise Fili Ltd. She is a wonderful nurturer. She’s the type who remembers your birthday and remembers to bring the cake. She kept the studio calm because she knew how to schedule work so that you didn’t have to deal with crazy deadlines and workloads.” (Ways we work, 2022)
Clients began requesting Hische as her portfolio transitioned from “illustration” to “illustrative lettering.” Hische took on freelance projects at night with Fili’s permission. “The freelance projects allowed me to grow professionally because they allowed me to apply Louise’s lessons to my personal work,” she says. Her self-assurance grew. She started to believe in her instincts. She began to experiment with new ideas. (Ways we work, 2022)

Comparative Style

Figure 12

Conclusion

  • Louise Fili and Jessica Hische worked together and now they have their independent success studios.
  • Women in the creative world are getting some of the recognation they deserve.
  • Even though many years have passed, the Victorian-era design are still around us and are being inspiration for many contemporary artists.

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Published by erikafukasawa

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