平面设计的历史从古老的拉斯考克山洞（Lascaux）开始，横跨到现代银座的眩目霓虹灯。在这段长远的历史中，以及二十世纪视觉传达的快速发展过程里，广告艺术、平面设计和美术之间偶尔会有界限模糊的情况。但这些项目彼此都共享同样的要素、理论、原则、应用方式和语言，有时候也分享相同的服务对象。在广告艺术中，最终的目标是要销售产品和服务。在视觉设计里，“重点是要将各种资讯整理成序，将不同的想法结合，表达并感受记录人类经验的人造物品”。
The history of graphic design begins with the ancient Lascaux cave and spans to the dazzling neon lights of modern Ginza. During this long history and the rapid development of visual communication in the 20th century, there were occasional blurred boundaries between advertising art, graphic design, and fine arts. But these projects share the same elements, theories, principles, application methods, and languages with each other, and sometimes also share the same service targets. In advertising art, the ultimate goal is to sell products and services. In visual design, the key is to organize various information into a sequence, combine different ideas, express and feel artificial objects that record human experience.
早期
early stage
可追溯至西元前一万四千年左右的拉斯考克山洞（Lascaux）壁画，以及在西元前三至四百万年诞生的书写语言，两者都是平面设计史上重要的里程碑，对其他以平面设计为基础的相关领域来说也非常重要。
The Lascaux cave murals dating back to around 14000 BC, as well as the writing language that emerged between 3-4 million BC, are important milestones in the history of graphic design and are also crucial for other related fields based on graphic design.
凯尔经（Book of Kells）是早期平面设计的范例之一。这是一本有着华丽装饰文字的圣经福音手抄本，约在西元800年由凯尔特修士所制作。
The Book of Kells is one of the early examples of graphic design. This is a beautifully decorated manuscript of the Bible Gospel, made by Celtic monks around 800 AD.
印刷发明
Printing Invention
在中国唐朝（618年－906年）年间，雕刻过的木板被用来印制图案于纺织品上，随后也用于印制佛教经典。在868年所印制的佛经是所知最早的印刷书籍。到了宋朝（960年－1279年），由于活字印刷术的发明，卷轴和书本能够方便的印制更多文字，因此让书籍广泛的普及。
During the Tang Dynasty (618-906) in China, carved wooden boards were used to print patterns on textiles, and later also used to print Buddhist scriptures. The Buddhist scriptures printed in 868 are the earliest known printed books. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279), due to the invention of movable type printing, scrolls and books were able to easily print more text, thus making books widely popular.
