Graphic Design: The Influence of

Graphic Design: The Influence of Technology Graphic design Graphic Design Meets Technology: How Technology Influences Design From the time that a caveman returned from a food hunt, yelled to his neighbors to come visit, grabbed his walking stick and drew ferocious stick figures in the dirt of the beast that just barely got away, man has turned to visual elements to convey both facts and emotion.

It's difficult to imagine that same caveman withdrawing to his cave, putting down his walking stick, booting up his computer and firing up Adobe Illustrator -- the design world's premier graphic design software. Think of the images he could create and the artistic details he could render. Reaching back to his recall of the beast and the attempted slaying and also unleashing the power of his senses and creativity, the caveman could, through the vast design capabilities of Illustrator, create a masterpiece worthy of neighborly acclaim and accolades.

Cavemen, after all, were known to be competitive, too. Man meets technology while graphic design merges with technology. Today, the proof of this phenomenon is everywhere -- from ubiquitous Starbuck's and McDonald's logos to the universal signs that guide travelers around the globe to the proper restroom or up or down a flight of stairs. These symbols, and thousands more, are the products of graphic design.

The universal directional signs are staggeringly simplistic in form, yet they do point up a tantalizing question: Is it possible to simply put the "right" technology in someone's hands -- even a caveman's hands -- and expect truly masterful graphic design to result? The short answer is no.

The longer answer is that while technology has made it simpler to create designs and has opened the field of graphic design to a generation of studious computer lovers, Illustrator and its more inferior cousins (such as Microsoft Publisher) still require Graphic design 3 extensive if not protracted training. Moreover, truly masterful graphic design doesn't stand a chance of creation without training in the basic fundamentals of design and all of its wondrous elements.

So while its influence has been staggering, graphic design technology is still incumbent on the inherent talents of man himself -- whether he etches pictures in the dirt with a walking stick or insists on beginning every graphic design project with a pencil and paper before bringing his crude renditions to life on a computer. Graphic design, defined The words seem hopelessly entwined, almost interdependent: graphic design. Alas, the term warrants at least six degrees of separation to understand what brought them together in the first place.

Graphic(s) are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper or stone to brand, inform, illustrate or entertain (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006). Design, as a noun, informally refers to a plan for the construction of an object. Put the two words together and the meaning is the plan for construction of a visual presentation (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006).

Webster's New World College Dictionary defines graphic design as "the practice or profession of designing print or electronic forms of visual information, as for an advertisement, publication or website." This definition implies that there is real work at hand -- and graphic design is the instrument, or tool. David Chu agrees, and he should know: he worked as a car designer for the Graphic design 4 Ford Motor Company in the 1970s and now teaches Illustrator courses at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

"Graphic design is the relationship of elements crafted for a purpose," he said. "Creativity is one thing. But you also have to know how to solve a problem. And to do this, you need to know and understand your target audience." Yet Chu would also agree that graphic design is far more than just a plan or a practice that leads to a definitive end; it is an ideal that is achieved through myriad thinking processes and artistic techniques.

Steven Heller wrote a book whose subject and object could easily be juxtaposed: Pop: How Graphic Design Shapes Popular Culture. (or does popular culture also have a hand in shaping graphic design?) "Designers are free thinkers, and in this age of accessible technologies, controlling the media is a viable and enviable option. Whatever type or design style suits a particular fancy, designers are more than designers; they are increasingly major contributors to the popular culture as authors" (Heller, 2010). The origins of graphic design W.A.

Wiggins was an unusual combination of these mediums: as a type designer, book designer, illustrator and commercial artist, Wiggins was among several prominent and progressive artists who believed it was important to support design education and to define printing as art. In 1911, at an informal gathering in of 14 people in New York, Wiggins marked the auspicious beginning of the largest and oldest graphic design institution in America. He was in Graphic design 5 good company, alongside Frederic W. Goudy, a famous poster designer, and Berkley Updike, a respected printer.

Yet it was Wiggins who deftly coined the term "graphic designer." Tied to the fine art community of New York City, this group understandably blurred the line between art and design. Determined and resolved to enlighten others to their point-of-view, they eventually formed what is now known as the American Institute of Graphic Arts in 1914. As the country's oldest professional organization for design, AIGA has more than 20,000 members in 65 chapters nationwide.

The group's mission in part, is to "promote the higher education in these arts, generally to do all things which will raise the standard and aid the extension and development of the graphic arts in the United States" (Steven & Gluck, 1989). Principle elements of design Today's graphic artists, like the cavemen of yesteryear, carry a big stick.

They must master and bring meaning to words that have come into common usage and which owe their origin to graphic design: line, shape, mass or size, texture, color, form, space and value (lightness or darkness). Other words, such as rebuses, pictograms, logos, trademarks, brands and monograms, aren't as well-known but underscore some of the principle elements of design. But the point remains: advertisements, posters, postcards, brochures, letterheads, websites and television -- virtually all forms of multimedia -- use a combination of these elements and symbols to create visual communication.

Like Chu, one of the more astute observers and educators of graphic design says that designers work with purpose, if not a mission, of sorts: "A distinct attribute of graphic design, when compared to other visual arts, is that of context" (Jackson, 2008). Graphic design 6 If "context" is subjective, then it follows that graphic design is, too.

Show the home page of a Web site to four people and you're likely to elicit four different opinions -- a fact of life that once led one anonymous artist to lament: "Everyone with a pair of eyes thinks they're a critic. Well, I'm here to tell you: they're not." In a sense, though, we are all critics of graphic design.

As consumers, we know what we like when we see it; we know instinctively when, say, an advertisement for cologne appeals to our senses and taps into our emotions, ranging from fun and adventure to risk and the unknown.

And yet pros like Chu know that a "good" design must contain some core elements: Exhibit contrast Prove that less is more Demonstrate that part of one element can be more intriguing than the entire element (i.e., a close-up of the core of an apple can draw more attention than a picture of the entire apple) Keep it simple Appeal to the senses Surprise us Today's graphic designers, also known as graphic artists, rub elbows -- literally and figuratively -- with fine artists, photographers, printers, publishers, etchers, engravers, lithographers, topographers and architects.

On high-profile projects in the world of business -- as Chu once was assigned -- graphic designers could gain access to CEOs and company presidents, entrusted with decisions that could make or break a company's fortune. Just ask Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike -- one of America's most successful sports equipment and apparel companies. He hired Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University, to create a logo for his then-company, Blue Ribbon Sports, in 1971.

Just like any conscientious Graphic design 7 artist, Davidson presented Knight and other company executives with a number of design options before they voted for what has become universally known and recognized as the Nike "swoosh." "I don't love it," Knight is said to have told her, "but I think it will grow on me." Since then, it's "grown" on thousands of other logos, too; the "swoosh" is easily the most copied (or "emulated," depending on your point-of-view) in the history of graphic design.

Davidson submitted a bill for $35 for her efforts, which made Nike one of the most easily recognized brands in the world. (it's been strongly suggested that Knight has since compensated Davidson well beyond her original invoice. Multimedia options and technology buttress need for graphic design Technology, as they say, is everywhere. And it's in everyone's hands. Fifteen years ago, cell phones were still uncommon among adults. Today, it seems peculiar if a young child doesn't own one, too.

But phones are just a mere segment of the communication and multimedia explosion. The emergence of smartphones, Blackberries and iPads have made information accessible and available immediately, right upon our demand. This new information age has sparked a rebirth in advertising, for every multimedia medium contains a staggering area of words, pictures and appeals -- almost all of which have been designed or influenced by a graphic designer along the way. Log into your e-mail account and you are flooded with an array of local advertisements.

You can work online, shop online, play games online, get homework help online and even get real-time advice from a certified mechanic about how to remove the radio from the dashboard in Graphic design 8 your car. And every click of the way, technology is tracing your every move, feeding you ads and offers that originated at the desk of a graphic artist or designer. But technology is not only tethered to computer lines; it's also tethered to a gas pump.

Some gasoline companies have programmed their pumps so that the moment a consumer selects his gasoline of choice -- regular, high-grade or premium -- a commercial touting the company begins to air (some would say blare) for the next five minutes. The "sea change" in the world of technology has -- to borrow an expression of an earlier, less complicated time -- made Sherry Turkle's head spin in wonder.

But Turkle, a professor at MIT for the last 25 years, notes that "we make our technologies and our technologies shape us." But the next generation of college students should fear not, for the entire revolution is being documented for future introspection. Joe Janes, chairman of the library and information science at the University of Washington and the person responsible for developing the Internet Public Library, recently stated he foresees a growing role for multimedia in the library (Mitchell, 2005).

Technology empowers but the operator rules the day Much like TV programs devoted to home improvement projects have engendered legions of weekend warriors, so too has the accessibility and ubiquity of graphic design spawned countless amateur designers. They have been encouraged by a cottage industry of "easy to follow" commercial templates and computer programs that guide wanna-be artists through the creation of business cards, brochures, Web sites and virtually any design challenge they wish to master.

Graphic design 9 But have we also lost sight of the word master? -- "a person recognized as having achieved the highest degree of skill," according to Webster's New World College Dictionary. To return to the original thesis question: is it possible to simply put the "right" technology in someone's hands -- even a caveman's hands -- and expect truly masterful graphic design to result? Not unless that someone is graced with god-like powers of intuition, skill and years of experimentation, practice and education.

To wit: Not only does a graphic designer need to know how to use sophisticated computer programs to create designs, but he or she often needs to understand photography, editing, printing capabilities and context. If a designer is creating an ad for the newspaper, he or she needs to consider several options: Will there be color? Is the font embedded into the design? Has the photo or graphic element been saved in the right dpi? (Does the novice.