Graphic Communication

Graphic design serves as a method for improving society through effective communication that makes complicated things easier to understand and use. Design persuades and influences public opinion, as is the case with propaganda or political design; design instructs people, as in how to navigate or assemble something; and design identifies and informs the public about a wide range of topics, from a company and its products or services to which country has the largest population. Through intelligent and thought-provoking design, a designer is able to communicate complex ideas in a simple and effective manner.

Graphic communication combines written language and imagery into messages that are aesthetically pleasing, connect with the audience on intellectual and emotional levels, and provide them with pertinent information. When properly executed, graphic design identifies, informs, instructs, interprets, and even persuades viewers to do something. It is important that the sender of a message and the receiver speak the same visual language - in this manner, the designer acts as the interpreter and translator of messages. Reducing the amount of information that is visually portrayed creates a more concise design - the goal for all forms of communication.

The graphic designer organizes and communicates messages to establish the nature of a product or idea, to set the appropriate stage on which to presents its virtues, and to announce and publicize such information in the most effective way. Within this process, style is a transmission code, a means of signaling that a certain message is intended for a specific audience. By manipulating visual forms into an appropriate style, the graphic designer can attract the right audience for a product or idea.

The art of graphic design, visual communication, has its roots deep in the past, beginning with prehistoric images carved on fragments of bone or painted on the walls of caves. These images represent humanity's first attempts to communicate a message visually, which is the essence of graphic design. Today, computer generated imagery and type have revolutionized the graphic design process, but the goal remains the same: communication.

Design Theory

Theory is all about asking why. The process of becoming a graphic designer is focused largely on how: how to use software, how to solve problems, how to organize information, how to get clients, how to work with printers. With so much to do, stopping to think about why they pursue these endeavors requires a momentary halt in the plan of professional development.

Graphic design is a social activity. Rarely working alone, designers respond to clients, audiences, publishers, and collaborators. While their work is exposed and highly visible, as individuals they often remain anonymous, their contribution to daily life existing below the threshold of public recognition. In addition to adding to the common beat of social experience, graphic designers have produced their own subculture, a global discourse that connects them across time and space as part of a shared endeavor, with their own heroes and their own narratives of discovery and revolution. Few members of the general public are aware of the intense waves of emotion triggered among designers by the typeface Helvetica generations after its inception. Yet nearly anyone living in a literate, urbanized part of the world has seen this typeface or characters inspired by it. Graphic design is visible everywhere, yet it is also invisible - unnoticed and unacknowledged. Creating design theory is about building one’s own community, constructing a social network that questions and illuminates everyday practice, making it visible.

Graphic designers entering the field today must master an astonishing range of technologies and prepare themselves for a career whose terms and demands will constantly change. There is more for a designer to do now than ever before. There is also more to read, more to think about, and many more opportunities to actively engage the discourse.

 

Gregory Kelley, MA
Adjunct Faculty, Palomar College
Graphic Communications Department