Design Elements, 2nd Edition

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WHAT IS

GRAPHIC

DESIGN?

A graphic designer is a

communicator: someone who

takes ideas and gives them

visual form so that others can

understand them.

Branding and wayfinding for a wine merchant

PARALLAX AUSTRALIA

Logo for a

financial services

company

LSD SPAIN

Logo for a

food bank

NAROSKA DESIGN

GERMANY

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design elements

The designer uses imagery, symbols, type,

color, and materials—whether printed

or on-screen—to represent the ideas that

must be conveyed; and to organize them

into a unified experience that is intended

to evoke a particular response.

While more or less confined to the creation

of typefaces and books from the Middle

Ages until the Industrial Revolution of the

late 1700s and early 1800s, design expanded

into advertising, periodicals, signage,

posters, and ephemera with the appearance

of a new, consumer marketplace. The term

“graphic design” itself appeared more

recently (attributed to W. A. Dwiggins, an

American illustrator and book designer, in

1922, to describe his particular activities).

The formal study of design as an indepen-

dent discipline didn’t come about until the

1920s, and the term entered into wide usage

only after World War II.

In contrast to other disciplines in the visual

arts, graphic design’s purpose is typically

defined by a client—it’s a service paid for

by a company or other organization—rath-

er than generated from within the designer.

Although artistic creation historically had

been commissioned by patrons, it wasn’t

until the 1830s that the mystique of the

bohemian painter as “expresser of self”

arose and, consequently, a marked distinc-

tion between fine and commercial art.

Designers encouraged this distinction for

philosophical, as well as strategic, reasons,

especially as they began to seek recognition

for design as a profession that could add

tremendous value to corporate endeavors.

In the fifty-odd years since, the graphic

designer has been touted as everything

from visual strategist to cultural arbiter—

and, since the mid 1970s, as an “author”

as well—shaping not only the corporate

07

Invitation to a marketing event

STUDIO NEWWORK UNITED STATES

Book cover with transparent jacket

LABORATÓRIO SECRETO BRAZIL

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what is graphic design?

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bottom line through clever visual manipu-

lation of a brand-hungry public, but also

the larger visual language of the postmod-

ern environment. All these functions are

important to graphic design ... but, lest we

forget the simplicity of the designer’s true

nature, let us return to what a graphic

designer does. A graphic designer assimi-

lates verbal concepts and gives them form.

This “giving form” is a discipline that inte-

grates an enormous amount of knowledge

and skill with intuition, creatively applied

in different ways as the designer confronts

the variables of each new project.

A designer must understand semiotics—

the processes and relationships inherent in

perception and interpretation of meaning

through visual and verbal material. He

or she must have expertise in the flow of

information—instructional strategies,

data representation, legibility and usability,

cognitive ordering, and hierarchic problem

solving—extending into typography, the

mechanics of alphabet design, and reading.

To design requires analytical and technical

mastery of image making—how shapes,

colors, and textures work to depict ideas,

achieve aesthetic cohesion and dynamism

and signify higher-order concepts while

evoking a strong emotional response.

Further, a designer must be more than

casually familiar with psychology and

history, both with respect to cultural

narratives, symbolism, and ritualized

experiences, as well as to more commercial,

consumer-based impulses and responses

(what is often referred to as marketing).

Last, but certainly not least, a designer

must have great facility with—and more

often, in-depth, specialized knowledge

of—multiple technologies needed to imple-

ment the designed solution: printing

media and techniques, film and video,

digital programming, industrial processes,

architectural fabrication, and so on.

Website for an architecture firm

POULIN

+

MORRIS UNITED STATES

Animated motion sequence

ONLAB GERMANY

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