1. What is graphic design?
Graphic design does not have a fixed meaning. In a broad sense it is the production of visual statements. The term was first used by the American book and advertising designer W.A.
Dwiggins in 1922. At that time it served the purpose of pointing toward a new profession that was broader than either typography, book design, or advertising design alone. For many years the term “graphic design” held because the range of media that graphic designers worked in did not change dramatically. By the early 1960s you had graphic designers working on large exhibitions, urban signage projects, and corporate identity programs. At that point, the practice outstripped the traditional name for it. New terms like “visual communication” …show more content…
4. How far back does the desire to preserve the history of graphic design go?
Well, books have been preserved in libraries since ancient times. The recognition of the book’s value as a container of knowledge was the impetus to preserve objects which today we admire for their design as well. Every graphic designer or visual communicator, for example, should go to Dublin to see the Book of Kells in the Trinity College Library. As far as preserving more recent forms of design go, we have drawings for typefaces that have been collected in printing libraries such as St. Bride’s in London. Posters were collected by the new applied art museums and museums of decorative arts that began to open in Europe from the mid-19th century on. The collection of less significant material is more recent. Some of the great ephemera collections today were started by single individuals. After the first collections of printed ephemera, which were often motivated by the quality of the wood engraving or lithography, museums of social and cultural history began collecting miscellaneous examples of printing as examples of …show more content…
Occasionally there is a mad scramble for someone to teach design history and no qualified people can be found. This derives from the refusal of administrators to commit to new programs in design history or design studies.
Actually the history, theory, and criticism of design have never been more important or relevant to design education. This is recognized in a few places such as the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in the Netherlands which features post graduate theory and criticism courses in art and design. In developing countries, the emphasis is on training graphic designers for the market. Quality is secondary. Look at how much poor work you see today. I feel it. You feel it. But poor typography or badly-designed web sites are hardly critical issues for people in general. What needs to be done in the academic setting is to implant the idea that design, whether visual communication or product design, is a cultural activity before it is a commercial one. Young designers need to locate themselves in their respective cultures, whether in the United States, Mexico, or
Palestine. To do so means knowing how to interpret culture in its present manifestations as
Graphic design does not have a fixed meaning. In a broad sense it is the production of visual statements. The term was first used by the American book and advertising designer W.A.
Dwiggins in 1922. At that time it served the purpose of pointing toward a new profession that was broader than either typography, book design, or advertising design alone. For many years the term “graphic design” held because the range of media that graphic designers worked in did not change dramatically. By the early 1960s you had graphic designers working on large exhibitions, urban signage projects, and corporate identity programs. At that point, the practice outstripped the traditional name for it. New terms like “visual communication” …show more content…
4. How far back does the desire to preserve the history of graphic design go?
Well, books have been preserved in libraries since ancient times. The recognition of the book’s value as a container of knowledge was the impetus to preserve objects which today we admire for their design as well. Every graphic designer or visual communicator, for example, should go to Dublin to see the Book of Kells in the Trinity College Library. As far as preserving more recent forms of design go, we have drawings for typefaces that have been collected in printing libraries such as St. Bride’s in London. Posters were collected by the new applied art museums and museums of decorative arts that began to open in Europe from the mid-19th century on. The collection of less significant material is more recent. Some of the great ephemera collections today were started by single individuals. After the first collections of printed ephemera, which were often motivated by the quality of the wood engraving or lithography, museums of social and cultural history began collecting miscellaneous examples of printing as examples of …show more content…
Occasionally there is a mad scramble for someone to teach design history and no qualified people can be found. This derives from the refusal of administrators to commit to new programs in design history or design studies.
Actually the history, theory, and criticism of design have never been more important or relevant to design education. This is recognized in a few places such as the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in the Netherlands which features post graduate theory and criticism courses in art and design. In developing countries, the emphasis is on training graphic designers for the market. Quality is secondary. Look at how much poor work you see today. I feel it. You feel it. But poor typography or badly-designed web sites are hardly critical issues for people in general. What needs to be done in the academic setting is to implant the idea that design, whether visual communication or product design, is a cultural activity before it is a commercial one. Young designers need to locate themselves in their respective cultures, whether in the United States, Mexico, or
Palestine. To do so means knowing how to interpret culture in its present manifestations as