Download - What is really a graphic design?
W H AT I S G R A P H I C D E S I G N ?
Is Graphic Design:
A History
Visual Art
Commercial Art
Advertising
Visual Communication
A Profession
A Set of Computer Skills
?
A History
Milton Glaser, 1973
Adolphe Muron Cassandre, 1935
Paul Rand
Emigre Magazine, 1985
Josef Müller-Brockmann
Visual Art
Mel Bochner, 2007
I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, Charles Demuth, 1928
Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, Piet Mondrian, 1921
Everything visual
Book of Kells
Lascaux caves
Japanese Ad, 1806
Harold, date unknown
Robert Crumb
Found Magazine
“Commercial Art”
J. M. Flagg, 1917
Lester Beall, 1939
Advertising
Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions;
there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple,
that's why it is so complicated.
—Paul Rand
... graphic design is a visual language uniting harmony and balance, color and light, scale and
tension, form and content. But it is also an idiomatic language, a language of cues and puns and
symbols and allusions, of cultural references and perceptual inferences that challenge both the
intellect and the eye.
—Jessica Helfand
A graphic designer is a communicator: someone who takes ideas and gives them visual form so that others can understand
them. Graphic designers perform this service on behalf of a company or other organization to help that entity get its message out to its audience and, in so doing, evoke a
particular response.
—from Timothy Samara’s Design Elements(our textbook)
“Visual Communication”
Graphic Design is a profession ...
serving a clientdefined by work
with mastery of dedicated software toolsequipped to solve any “visual design problem”
and an established career path
... and a set of skills.
effective use of type and image to communicate an idea
engagement in the evolving signs and symbols of our environment
ability to critique and negotiate visual ideas in a team and with a client
ability to conceive visual ideas; knowing what is possible and how to get there
Graphic Design is the art of persuasion ...
meant to create desire for products, or persuade viewer to think in a certain way
establishing the public face of a company through branding
ultimately is ephemeral
... and an all-encompassing study of human symbols & signs.
man makes marks to communicate; the evolution of those marks reveal a history of the times
all marks are meant to communicate something for a reason, there is always a “client”we have own own symbolism; even advertising
reveals the desires and needs of our societya successful graphic designer is
tapped into the visual code of the times
Graphic Design is meant to inform ...
serving a function uniquely visualby conveying complex ideas quickly
creating better understanding across language barriers, to direct giving security
... and to beautify.
creates civic prideelevates aesthetic pleasure and creative thinking
humanizes
Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
—Leo Burnett
Big Questions
What is the goal of an education in graphic design?
Can graphic design be taught?
Can graphic design be learned?
When does one become a graphic designer?