Graphic design

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Graphic design is the process of communicating visually using text and/or images to present information, or promote a message. Graphic design practice embraces a range of cognitive and aesthetic skills and crafts, including typography, image development and page layout. Graphic design is applied in communication design and fine art. Like other forms of communication, graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created, and the products (designs) such as creative solutions, imagery and multimedia compositions. Graphic design was traditionally applied to static printed media, such as books, magazines and brochures. Since the advent of personal computers – and in particular WYSIWYG user interfaces – graphic design has been utilized in electronic media - often referred to as interactive design, or multimedia design.

Contents 1 Graphic design history 1.1 Early 1.2 Modern 2 Contemporary Design Business 3 Graphic design tools 4 Uses in Education 5 See also 5.1 Related disciplines 5.2 Related topics 6 External links 7 Footnotes

[edit] Graphic design history

[edit] Early

Although the term 'graphic designer' was first coined in the 20th century, the story of graphic design spans the history of humankind from the caves of Lascaux to the dazzling neons of Ginza. In both this lengthy history and in the relatively recent explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries, there is sometimes a blurring distinction and over-lapping of advertising art, graphic design and fine art. After all, they share many of the same elements, theories, principles, practices and languages, and sometimes the same benefactor or client. In advertising art the ultimate objective is the sale of goods and services. In graphic design, "the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that document human experience."^[2]

The paintings in the caves of Lascaux around 14,000 BC and the birth of written language in the third or fourth millennium BC are both significant milestones in the history of graphic design and other fields which hold roots to graphic design.

The Book of Kells is an early example of graphic design. It is a lavishly decorated hand-written copy of the Gospels of the Christian Bible created by Celtic monks around 800AD.

Johann Gutenberg's introduction of movable type in Europe made books widely available. The earliest books produced by Gutenberg's press and others of the era are known as Incunabula. The Venetian printer and publisher Aldus Manutius developed a design style and structure for the book that remains largely intact to the present day. Graphic design of this era is sometimes called either Old Style (after the Gothic and handwriting-based typefaces which the earliest typographers used), or Humanist, after the new typefaces imitating the lettering in Roman carved inscriptions. These were introduced as part of the revival of classical learning, and still form the basis of the most commonly used Western typefaces.

Graphic design after Gutenberg saw a gradual evolution rather than any significant change. In the late 19th century, especially in the United Kingdom, an effort was made to create a firm division between the fine arts and the applied arts.

From 1891 to 1896 William Morris' Kelmscott Press published books that are some of the most significant of the graphic design products of the Arts and Crafts movement, and made a very lucrative business of creating books of great stylistic refinement and selling them to the wealthy for a premium. Morris proved that a market existed for works of graphic design in their own right and helped pioneer the separation of design from production and from fine art. The work of the Kelmscott Press is characterized by its obsession with historical styles. This historicism was, however, important as it amounted to the first significant reaction to the stale state of nineteenth-century graphic design. Morris' work, along with the rest of the Private Press movement, directly influenced Art Nouveau and is indirectly responsible for developments in early twentieth century graphic design in general.

Piet Mondrian, born in 1872, was a painter whose work was influential in modern graphic design. Although he was considered a fine artist, his work was mentioned^[3] among others in a study of grids, the basic structure of the modern advertising layout known also as the grid system used commonly today by graphic designers.

[edit] Modern

Modern design of the early 20th century, much like the fine art of the same period, was a reaction against the decadence of typography and design of the late 19th century. The hallmark of early modern typography is the sans-serif typeface. Early Modern, not to be confused with the modern era of the 18th and 19th centuries, typographers such as Edward Johnston and Eric Gill after him were inspired by vernacular and industrial typography of the latter nineteenth century. The signage in the London Underground is a classic of this era and used a font designed by Edward Johnston in 1916.

In the 1920s, Soviet Constructivism (art) applied 'intellectual production' in different spheres of production. The movement saw individualistic art as useless in revolutionary Russia and thus moved towards creating objects for utilitary purposes. They designed buildings, theater sets, posters, fabrics, clothing, furniture, logos, menus etc.

Jan Tschichold codified the principles of modern typography in his 1928 book, New Typography. He later repudiated the philosophy he espoused in this book as being fascistic, but it remained very influential. Tschichold, Bauhaus typographers such as Herbert Bayer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky are the fathers of graphic design as we know it today. They pioneered production techniques and stylistic devices used throughout the twentieth century. Although the computer has altered production forever, the experimental approach to design they pioneered has become more relevant than ever.

The following years saw graphic design in the modern style gain widespread acceptance and application. A booming post-World War II American economy established a greater need for graphic design, mainly advertising and packaging. The emigration of the German Bauhaus school of design to Chicago in 1937 brought a "mass-produced" minimalism to America; sparking a wild fire of "modern" architecture and design. Notable names in mid-century modern design include Adrian Frutiger, designer of the typefaces Univers and Frutiger; Paul Rand, who, from the late 1930s until his death in 1996, took the principles of the Bauhaus and applied them to popular advertising and logo design, helping to create a uniquely American approach to European minimalism while becoming one of the principal pioneers of the subset of graphic design known as corporate identity; and Josef Müller-Brockmann, who designed posters in a severe yet accessible manner typical of the 1950s and 1960s.

The reaction to the increasing severity of graphic design was slow but inexorable^{[citation needed]}. The origins of postmodern typography can be traced back as far as the humanist movement of the 1950s. Notable among this group is Hermann Zapf who designed two typefaces that remain ubiquitous — Palatino (1948) and Optima (1952). By blurring the line between serif and sans-serif typefaces and re-introducing organic lines into typography these designs did more to ratify modernism than they did to rebel^{[citation needed]}.

An important point was reached in graphic design with the publishing of the First things first 1964 Manifesto which was a call to a more radical form of graphic design and criticized the ideas of value-free and purely commercial design. This was massively influential on a generation of new graphic designers^{[citation needed]} and contributed to the founding of publications such as Emigre magazine.

Saul Bass designed many motion picture title sequences which feature new and innovative methods of production and startling graphic design to attempt to tell some of the story in the first few minutes. He may be best known for his work for Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).

Milton Glaser designed the unmistakable I Love NY ad campaign (1973) and a famous Bob Dylan poster (1968). Glaser took stylistic hints from popular culture from the 1960s and 1970s.

David Carson has gone against the restrictiveness of modern designs. Some of his designs for Raygun magazine are intentionally illegible, featuring typography designed to be visual rather than literary experiences.

The Rio album cover for Duran Duran designed by Malcolm Garrett. Illustration by Patrick Nagel. Fine art illustrations are used in graphic design, but are not usually considered graphic design until typography is applied.

A Boeing 747 Air Force One aircraft. The cyan blue pattern, the US flag, presidential seal and the lettering were all designed at different times and combined in this one final design. Graphic design is applied in virtually every organization or society. There are virtually no limits to the size and applications of graphic design.

The cover of Never Mind the Bollocks designed by Jamie Reid - a classic piece of 'anti-design' postmodern graphics

[edit] Contemporary Design Business

Designers work in many scales of business, from small one man specialist consultancies to larger agencies, designers may be part of in-house teams of large non-design companies or work in specialist external studios. The majority of graphic designers work for clients, responding to a given brief.

There are many stages involved in producing a work of graphic design. These range from defining the creative brief, undertaking research, visualizing initial ideas, laying out the design; to final preparation of artwork for print and overseeing printed reproduction.

In some larger organizations these tasks are divided into specialized roles, along the lines of assembly line manufacture. The concept part of graphic design will be generally dealt with by an art director or senior designer, whilst more junior designers will lay out design ideas. Sometimes much of the preparation for print production of digital files is done by a separate production department.

[edit] Graphic design tools

Tools graphic designers use are the mind, eye, hand, traditional tools, and computers. A creative concept is not usually considered a design unless it is given a tangible or visual form. However, since the design consists of ideas, the most important and only tool that is required in the design process is the mind. Critical, observational, quantitative and analytic thinking are also required for page layout and rendering. If the executor is merely following a sketch, script or instructions (as may be supplied by an art director) they are not usually considered the author. The eye and the hand are often augmented with the use of external traditional or digital image editing tools. The selection of the appropriate one to the communication problem at hand is also a key skill in graphic design work, and a defining factor of the rendering style.

In the mid 1980s, the arrival of desktop publishing and the introduction of graphic art software applications introduced a generation of designers to computer image manipulation and 3D image creation that had previously been laborious. Computer graphic design enabled designers to instantly see the effects of layout or typographic changes without using any ink in the process, and to simulate the effects of traditional media without requiring a lot of space. Traditional tools such as pencils or markers are often used to develop graphic design ideas, even when computers are used for finalization.

Computers are generally considered to be an indispensable tool used in the graphic design industry. Computers and software applications are generally seen, by creative professionals, as more effective production tools than traditional methods. However, some designers continue to use manual and traditional tools for production, such as Milton Glaser.

There is some debate whether computers enhance the creative process of graphic design.^[4] Rapid production from the computer allows many designers to explore multiple ideas quickly with more detail than what could be achieved by traditional hand-rendering or paste-up on paper, moving the designer through the creative process more quickly.^[5] However, being faced with limitless choices does not help isolate the best design solution and can lead to designers endlessly iterating without a clear design outcome.

New ideas can come by way of experimenting with tools and methods, be they traditional or digital. Some designers explore ideas using pencil and paper to avoid creating within the limits of more sophisticated tools. Others use many different mark-making tools and resources from computers to sticks and mud as a means of inspiring creativity. One of the key features of graphic design is it involves selecting the appropriate image making tools out of it's ability to generate meaning rather than preference.^[6] Some graphic design ideas are created entirely in the mind, before approaching any external media.

A graphic designer may also use sketches to explore multiple or complex ideas quickly^[7] without the potential distractions of technical difficulties from software malfunctions or software learning^{[citation needed]}. Hand rendered comps are often used to get approval of a graphic design idea before investing what would be too much time to produce finished visuals on a computer or in paste-up if rejected. The same thumbnail sketches or rough drafts on paper may be used to rapidly refine and produce the idea on the computer in a hybrid process. This hybrid process is especially useful in logo design^[8] where a software learning curve may detract from a creative thought process. The traditional-design/computer-production hybrid process may be used for freeing ones creativity in page layout or image development as well^{[citation needed]}. Traditional graphic designers may employ computer-savvy production artists to produce their ideas from sketches, without needing to learn the computer skills themselves.

In other design fields the use of computers is often referred to as CAD (computer aided design) but is rarely used in graphic design. DTP (desktop publishing) is used to describe page layout.

[edit] Uses in Education

Graphics are heavily used in education in textbooks for subjects such as geography, science and math to illustrate theories and concepts. Diagrams are also used to label photographs and pictures. A common example of graphics in use to educate is diagrams of human anatomy. Educational animation is an important emerging field of graphics. Animated graphics can have advantages over static graphics for explaining subject matter that changes over time. The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary uses graphics and technical illustrations to make reading material more interesting and easier to understand. In an encyclopedia graphics are used to illustrate concepts and show examples of a particular topic being discussed. In order for a graphic to function effectively as an educational aid, the learner must be able to interpret it successfully. This interpretative capacity is one aspect of graphic design.

The School of the Art Institute offered courses in commercial art before World War I, and in 1921 established a Department of Printing Arts. Its outstanding students included Robert Hunter Middleton, who epitomized the development of graphic design in Chicago from the mid-1920s through the 1950s.

[edit] See also

• List of notable graphic designers
• List of graphic design institutions

[edit] Related disciplines

Marketing communications Communication design Creative direction Art director Copywriting

Instructional design Technical writing Architecture Industrial design Information design

Typography Desktop publishing Motion design Interface design Web graphic design

[edit] Related topics

Aesthetics Color theory Composition (visual arts) Design principles and elements

European Design Awards Graphic design occupations Graphics Information graphics

Logotype Style guide Visualization (graphic) Value (colorimetry)

[edit] External links

• Graphic Design Forums - Community Forums - Prepress Graphic Design Forums
• About.com's graphic design page
• American Institute of Graphic Arts
• Center for the Study of Political Graphics
• Communication Arts Network
• Design Encyclopedia (The)
• Graphic Arts Guild
• Graphic design job descriptions
• Icograda (International Council of Graphic Design Associations)

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ Currie, Nick. Design Rockism.
2. ^ Meggs, Philip B., 'A history of graphic design'. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983
3. ^ Allen Hurlburt, The Grid: A Modular System for the Design and Production of Newpapers, Magazines, and Books, Dec 1982 pp:13
4. ^ www.designtalkboard.com [1] [2] retrieved 3-18-2007
5. ^ Jann Lawrence Pollard and Jerry James Little, Creative Computer Tools for Artists: Using Software to Develop Drawings and Paintings, Nov 2001 Introduction
6. ^ Mike Rohde, [3] [4] Wall Street Journal Mention in Jeremy Wagstaff's Loose Wire, Retrieved 3-19-2007
7. ^ Jacci Howard Bear, desktoppub.about.com Retrieved 3-19-2008
8. ^ Gregory Thomas, How to Design Logos, Symbols and Icons: 24 Internationally Renowned Studios Reveal How They Develop Trademarks for Print and New Media, April 2003, pp:48