What is Graphic Design? (28/10/11)

What is Graphics?

This session was spent looking at the history of Arts and discussing what we thought Graphic Design actually was. There were many different thoughts and opnions as to what Graphic Design intailed and what it was used for. Here are some of the key points that stood out to me the most:

• Advertising
• Marketing Material
• Posters
• CD Covers
• Logos

Each one of these points were what people from other areas of creative practices thought graphic design was. From this session, we learnt that graphic design dates back many years ago and started purely from basic art. Graphic Design is a fairly young form of art due to the fact that in the early 1900s, art and design were not separated into any multiple categories. They were all simply combined into one and was called art. 

We spent time looking at real definitions of graphics and one that stood out to me the most was a quote that read "…as an art form, graphic design is viewed only from an aesthetic perspective, without enough consideration of communication and social significance". 
This got me thinking about people who are not so knowledgeable about Visual communication. The way in which others may see visual communication would definitley be different the the actual designer themselves.
We also discussed the quality of graphics when it comes to communication with the public.

Is the image still useful if it is not communicating in the way that it should be?
There were mixed opinions and answers to this question as many people felt that graphic design should be considered as an art, therefore if it not communicating well, it should still maintain it's quality. Others believed that graphic design is visual communication, therefore if it is not communicating a message, it's useless.