That image of an almighty talented individual fit perfectly into the ad industry narrative. A typical art director stereotype - an outstanding talent, egocentric and artistic, highly valued and paid - has become and stayed the aspirational goal of young graphic designers for decades. That approach has spurred graphic designers’ ‘artistic’ ambitions and led to the birth of the art director role (8). Mainly targeting the emotional hemisphere of the consumers’ brain, marketers emphasized two graphic design functions: to present and promote (advertising), and to identify (branding). Advertising and branding, marketing subsets, recruited graphic designers and exploited the practice as a handy tool in executing visual communications. Marketing hijacked graphic design for its own benefit. Volkswagen Think Small advertisement, art direction by Helmut Krone, DDB (Doyle Dane Bernbach), 1959. Graphviz cheat sheet drivers#Its success wiggles somewhere on a thin rope stretched between the two opposite drivers of human decision-making: rational and emotional (7).Ī graphic designer’s job is to find that sweet spot which is emotional enough to resonate at a glance and trigger a consumer’s feelings and–on the other hand–rational enough to guard that appeal after more detailed observation. That taps into the very essence of visual communication, the final destination of the practice. While the artist’s goal is to, arguably, evoke the spectator’s emotion based on personal obsession (the art concept), the graphic designer’s focus is to communicate information based on targeted objectives (e.g., a consumer’s needs). However, there is a fundamental difference between the two. As a discipline which uses an artistic method, its work is often mistaken for art (academia still sometimes categorizes it as a subset of the applied arts). Graphic design always had a quirky relationship with art. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La troupe de Mlle Eglantine, poster, 1896 Credit: At the end of the 19th century, graphic design practitioners were often labeled as commercial artists (6). knowledge of the visual perception principles (6) - knowledge of color theory - knowledge of typography The practitioner: graphic designer to identify, - to inform and instruct, - to present and promote.Īnd the three core skills define its practitioner: The three basic functions of graphic design still define the field (5): Over the years technology and media have changed tremendously, yet the core of the trade has stayed pretty much the same. Three basic functions and three core skills It stands for an artistic method that shapes visual information to fit into two dimensions. It reflects inwards of the profession: it’s not about how the information is consumed - visually, but how it’s designed - graphically. Graphic art is categorized as a branch of fine art which encompasses all (manual) artistic techniques that produce multiple printed artworks (4).Īside from the rich legacy of ‘graphic’, the main appeal comes from its meaning. It is borrowed from graphic art, a notable graphic design ancestor and for some time the main ‘influencer’ of visual communications. Why is that? Well, ‘graphic’ has a long history. Regardless of who was first, what’s pertinent is that both used the same adjective - graphic. Meyer, an educator who taught a class at California School of Arts and Crafts in “Graphic Design and Lettering” (3). However, some sources attribute it to Frederick H. Dwiggins in the 1920s, who wanted to describe the emerging profession that utilizes images, colors and typography to establish visual communication (2). Meggs, arguably the most distinguished graphic design historian, the term itself was coined by typographer W.A. Credit: Įncyclopedia Britannica defines graphic design as “the art and profession of selecting and arranging visual elements - such as typography, images, symbols, and colors - to convey a message to an audience.” (1)Īccording to Philip B. Harry Beck’s design of the London Underground map, 1933.
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