Now it’s very common to talk about pages being in “portrait” or “landscape” mode, and everyone knows what is meant. I don’t remember ever seeing this terminology before the day when everyone had computers and used word processors.
Does anyone know who first came up with the idea of using these terms to apply to page and screen orientation?
The earliest usage in my copy of the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1932, so it predates computer technology, and was used for printed material.
I used the terms in photography, specifically the orientation of 35mm slides, long before their use in computers.
Portrait lens and landscape lens, for vertical and horizontal images, were terms used in photography at least from the beginning of the 20th century. Probably earlier but I haven’t done a thorough search.
Whilst portrait and landscape have been used to describe orientation in photography for some time, as noted above, I don’t think that the portrait/landscape lens distinction is anything to do with that. A portrait lens will have a slightly longer than normal (in the photographic sense) focal length to give more natural perspective, whilst a landscape lens would have a shorter focal length to give a wider field of view, and maybe better coverage to allow for lens movements in larger formats. Both types of lens would work equally well in either orientation as the field of view is circular.
I’ll take a WAG and say it goes back to painting and the orientation of a canvas, and was carried into printing from there. In other words, it started before printing did.
Thanks for the replies. TriPolar, I know that the terminology has been used in paintings for a long time. I was just wondering if there was a specific instance we can point to where someone had an “aha moment” and decided to use to portrait/landscape terminology in regard to the printed page.
Well, prior to computers, I never heard it used to describe the orientation of a piece of paper. Portrait was the default; landscape was called “sideways.” Thus you’d put the piece of paper in the typewriter sideways if you wanted to type so that the text went the long way. I first saw landscape and portrait in the late 80s, when computer printers that could print in both orientations came along.
The term certainly existed in photography before, but not in general office use, and was not referring to the orientation of a sheet of paper, which really did not become an issue until laser printers came along that could print both orientations.
In reading this it appears might simply be an extension of the terminology used to describe CRT display orientation.
“Portrait” and “Landscape” were commonly used to describe computer monitor orientation well before laser or inkjet page printers hit the scene in force. It seems only logical that PC printer engineers would extend that terminology to describe page layout orientation.
It goes back to the 1800’s at least.
I’m guessing that it started out with all ‘Portraits’ as opposed to sitting for a painting then someone figured out how to turn the camera sideways.
That may well have been the layman’s term for landscape, but the terms portrait and landscape have long existed for those involved in the profession of printing, eg printers, past-up artists and graphic designers. Computers, specifically desktop publishing, have brought the profession of printing and its terminologies into the wider world – hence nowadays everyone talks of fonts, formats, kerning and the like.
Suggesting that the advent of computers have influenced the world of paper formats is not true, and it utterly ignores the long history of professional printing (and associated trades such as graphic design). Paper formats haven’t changed with the advent of computers, and PC printers have simply adopted existing formats, and terminologies.
Somewhat related: In French, there’s a (marginal?) tradition of :
portrait = à la française (“French style”)
landscape = à l’italienne (“Italian style”)
In the 1990s, French versions of Windows (or Word?) used that nomenclature. Nowadays they just use *portrait *and paysage, which are more direct translations.
I’m fully willing to believe that, however the odd circumstance the OP notes is that there does not seem to be (accessible on the net at least) any evidence for the use of the specific technical terms “landscape” and 'portrait" mentioned in the context of professional non-laser printing prior to the advent of the laser printer.
Are there any articles, manuals or similar from the 60’s or earlier, prior to the advent of the laser printer that uses these terms in the context of professional printing to describe page orientation?
To be more precise as previously noted by other poster it’s obvious that the terms “landscape” and “portrait” refer to specific things in painting and photography, but they do not refer *specifically *to image orientation.
I’m taking the OPs question to ask what was the origin of these terms with respect to their use to describe page orientation in printing. Were the terms "landscape’ and “portrait” used by professional printers in the pre-laser era to describe page orientation in old school mechanical ink based printing processes or did it grow out of other uses for these terms in the PC industry such as the terminology used to describe the orientation of early PC CRT monitors?
I suppose the distinquishing feature here is that prior to computer printers it wasn’t really an issue. Mechanical printing didn’t have the capability to rotate the print orientation, the printing just happened the way the plate was aligned. Possibly some of the more advanced typesetting machines could have offered this choice, but in the end it wouldn’t change the way the actual printer operated. So there is some uniqueness to the terms in computer printing to refer to the orientation of copy, but it is a subtle difference based on the different process of creating an image.
The usefulness in printing and design for the terms isn’t confined to how the paper loads into the machine – in fact, for designers, it’s a minor consideration (mainly cost). The main usefulness is in describing a format, eg I might discuss design options with a client which could include an A4 landscape brochure or a portrait business card.
They are useful terms that have little to do with how a printer might churn out the paper.
As I said, the difference is subtle. In other printing techniques it refers only to the orientation of the page, or an image on a page. In computer printing it refers to the method of composition itself.
I disagree. The context for the use of landscape and portrait in many early 1900s documents about photography was precisely that the image was to be horizontal or vertical. (I don’t understand chacoguy’s link, since neither term appears on that page.)
It would be helpful if Giles posted the 1932 use from the OED. Assuming that it is the modern use, it was around, at least in the technical world, long before PCs. Whether it came from printing or photography is an interesting question.
You said:
Except that it was.
Another example: it is good practice (in my world) when describing dimensions to use width x height, ie A4 portrait is 201x297mm. However, not everyone uses the same practice, indeed not everyone even knows this practice, so specifying the orientation is important.
So when a media planner gives me dimensions for a poster or a half page ad press ad, I really need to know if it’s portrait or landscape. This has nothing to do with computers or printers, which have clearly adopted this very useful terminology for orientation.
The point I am making is that it isn’t a computing term, any more than specifying ‘black’ or ‘cmyk’ when you press ‘print’ is.
