Graphic Design

Graphic design as a discipline
Graphic design takes ideas, concepts, text and images and presents them in a visually engaging form through print, electronic or other media. It imposes an order and structure to the content in order to facilitate and ease the communication process, while optimising the likelihood that the message will be received and understood by the target audience. A designer achieves this goal through the conscious manipulation of elements; a design may be philosophical, aesthetic, sensory, emotional or political in nature.

What is graphic design?
Graphic design is a creative visual arts discipline that encompasses many areas. It may include art direction, typography, page layout, information technology and other creative aspects. This variety means that there is a fragmented landscape for design practice within which designers may specialise and focus.

What is a graphic designer?
Thinking of graphic design as a trade is anachronistic and limited. It is more useful to look at the underlying approach to design that a graphic designer takes in order to understand his or her role in the print and digital production process. A designer essentially has two roles in the process: satisfying the design brief and executing the job.


Influences and creative elements
Graphic design is subject to the evolving intellectual and aesthetic trends that influence the work of designers and reflect the attitudes of society at large.
For example, design responds to the changing themes that govern the way we view the world and this is evident in movements such as Modernism, Postmodernism and Deconstructivism. These trends help shape the development and evolution of graphic design as a creative discipline, opening new doors of creative possibility and providing new tools with which to meet design challenges.

Typography
Typography is the means by which a written idea is given a visual form. It is one of the most influential elements that establishes the character and emotional attributes of a design; the visual form it takes dramatically affects the accessibility of an idea and how a reader reacts towards it.

The graphic design process
The graphic design process involves all the steps necessary to produce a piece of printed or electronic work from agreeing a brief with the client to sketching conceptual ideas for design development and liaising with those involved in the production process, such as printers and programmers. How this process is structured and undertaken is dictated by the complexity of a job, the range of media it is being created for and the number of other people involved in the process. Working with large clients and agencies may entail more steps than working with smaller organisations, and each job requires a different combination of design skill sets.


Delivering the message
Graphic design is presented to its target audience through a wide range of media from printed flyers to posters and websites. As such, this chapter addresses how varying messages are conveyed using a vast array of techniques, tools and methods. It looks at the end results of the design process and the work that the audience, often the general public, interacts with. This chapter focuses on the various platforms that designers have at their disposal to deliver strong and specific messages – from print and screen through to environmental design where a piece actually forms part of the physical environment.


Procuring work
It is ironic that many graphic designers, in spite of being responsible for creating attractive, memorable and even iconographic images to promote their clients, often struggle when it comes to their own self-promotion. Considered, thoughtful and targeted self-promotion is the designer’s key to obtaining regular work. Successful graphic design, like any creative industry, has to be underpinned by a solid economic platform. Self-promotion is an integral part of the work of any graphic designer, whether an individual practitioner or a member of a thriving design agency. This chapter outlines some of the key considerations to promote your design business.

The production process
This final chapter looks at the basic tool kit a graphic designer uses to create and produce effective designs. The tools unleash and channel creative ideas from the design process into workable and physical products – through the printing process or for electronic applications such as web pages. This section also includes basic information on how to ensure that control is maintained over the use of images and colour.