Vignette (graphic design)
Encyclopedia
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
, are decorative designs usually in books, used both to separate sections or chapters and to decorate borders.
In Descriptive, or Analytical Bibliography for the hand-press period (ca. 1450 to 1800) a vignette refers to an engraved design printed using a copper-plate press, on a page that has already been printed on using a letter press (Printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
). Vignettes are sometimes distinguished from other in-text illustrations printed on a copper-plate press by the fact that they do not have a border; such designs usually appear on title-pages only.
Woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s, which are printed on a letter press and are also used to separate sections or chapters are identified as a headpiece
Headpiece
Headpiece can refer to:*A typically thin metallic crown, headband, or tiara worn around the forehead. Commonly worn by ancient rulers, such as Cleopatra, headpieces usually carry some emblem of religious or political significance....
, tailpiece
Tailpiece
A tailpiece is a component on many stringed musical instruments that anchors one end of the strings, usually the end opposite the end with the tuning mechanism the scroll, headstock, peghead, etc.-Function and construction:...
or printer's ornament, depending on shape and position.
See also
- CalligraphyCalligraphyCalligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
, another conjunction of text and decoration - CurlicueCurlicueA curlicue, or alternatively curlycue, in the visual arts, is a fancy twist, or curl, composed usually from a series of concentric circles...
s, flourishes in the arts usually composed of concentric circles, often used in calligraphy - ScrollworkScrollworkScrollwork is an element of ornamentation and graphic design using a spiral. The name comes from by the supposed resemblance to the edge-on view of a rolled parchment scroll. "Scrollwork" is today mostly used in popular language for two-dimensional decorative flourishes and arabesques of all...
, general name for scrolling abstract decoration used in many areas of the visual artsVisual artsThe visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...