Trade Card for John Hancock, Engraver, Letter Press & Copper Plate Printer 1818

This trade card for John Hancock, Engraver, Letter Press & Copper Plate Printer, employs a formal structure rooted in the conventions of early 19th-century commercial ephemera. The card presents a study in contrasts, employing the starkness of black ink against the off-white of the paper. The design is structured through typography. Different fonts are used to create a visual hierarchy. Note the elegant script announcing the recipient’s name. Then observe the blockier, more utilitarian font indicating Hancock’s trade. This echoes the functional imperative of early industrial advertising. The card uses the semiotics of the time to express the trade's value through careful arrangement and variation in type. As an artwork, it destabilizes established meanings of art by existing as a medium of commercial exchange, questioning the boundaries between art and commodity. It serves as a cultural artifact, reflecting the transition of visual communication in a rapidly industrializing society.