This document provides an overview of graphic design by discussing its history as both visual art and commercial art used for advertising. It also examines graphic design as a profession that utilizes visual communication and computer skills to solve design problems. The document explores graphic design as a means to inform and persuade audiences through the effective use of images and type to convey ideas. It suggests graphic design both humanizes society and reveals cultural symbols and signs that have evolved over time.
26. 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
27. ... 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
28. 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)
54. Graphic Design is a profession ...
serving a client
defined by work
with mastery of dedicated software tools
equipped to solve any “visual design problem”
and an established career path
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59. ... 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
60. 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
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65. ... 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 society
a successful graphic designer is
tapped into the visual code of the times
66.
67. Graphic Design is meant to inform ...
serving a function uniquely visual
by conveying complex ideas quickly
creating better understanding across language
barriers, to direct
giving security
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70. ... and to beautify.
creates civic pride
elevates aesthetic pleasure and creative thinking
humanizes
71. Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still
the secret of great creative people.
—Leo Burnett