Page 200 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

GRAPHIC DESIGN 197

A. Graphic Design related to the Printing Industry
1. Advertisement in newspapers and periodicals
The first newspaper published from Kolkata was a weekly called Bengal Gazette or
Calcutta General Advertiser, published in 1780. James Augustus Hickey was the
initiator. The first Bengali monthly Dikdarshan and weekly Samachar Darpan were
11
published in 1818, both from Serampore Mission Press. From James Long’s writing
we get to know that by 1854 the number of Bengali periodicals stood at 19 with a
circulation of 8100 (fig. 4.4). Advertisements published in these newspapers from
12
Kolkata between the latter half of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century
were mostly addresses of shops, the name-date-venue of festivals or advertisement of
different products. The Bengali type was then at its primary stage. Most of the
advertisements had some information and very little scope for making them attractive.
However, there had been attempts to make them eye-catching by making a contrast of
large and small fonts (fig. 4.5).
Throughout the 19th century and the second decade of the 20th century,
advertisements published in the newspapers mostly reflected western lifestyle and
culture, for example- advertisement of cars, ready-made garments for men and women
etc. Sometimes there were personal advertisements of painters from Europe,
advertisement of theatres, cinemas etc. along with a few other products. The visual
language of advertisement gradually developed alongside the improvement of printing
technology (fig. 4.6).
Until about 1947, we have seen, from press layout, typography to illustration everything
had to be done by the artist’s own hands. Photography was not greatly in use (fig. 4.7).
We can mention here Annada Munshi’s advertisement on railway transportation ‘Lord
Gourango Travels’ or the advertisement series of Indian Tea Board with Satyajit Ray’s fig. 4.4 Front page of
13
concept, illustrated by Makhan Datta Gupta published daily. Later, Ronen Ayen Datta’s Hitakari, 1890,
14
advertisement on Jaba Kusum Oil of Bengal Chemicals began a new era of illustration published from Kushtia
in this sector. Among celebrated persons in advertisement, we can name Jatindra
15
Kumar Sen (1882-1966), Purnachandra Ghosh (1885-1949), Pareshchandra
Majumdar (1895-1965), Binoykrishna Bose (1894-1959), Haripada Roy
(1895-1971), Jotishchandra Dasgupta (1900-1944), Jyotishchandra Sinha
(1904-1956), Surya Ray (1913-1979), and Siddheswar Mitra (1904-?). In
this connection we can mention the advertisement agency D.J. Kimmer &
Company. Hutton Williams was the director of this company in the
beginning but later it was taken over by Dilip Kumar Gupta who was
popularly known as D.K.
The two countries created after the partition of 1947 were India and
Pakistan. Pakistan had two parts –East Pakistan and West Pakistan. Most of
the factories and industries were in West Pakistan. East Pakistan was more
of a market for products produced in West Pakistan. Therefore, most of the
advertising agencies were in West Pakistan especially in Karachi. However,