2. Objectives Define graphic design
Become familiar with the major graphic design disciplines
Learn about working in the fields of graphic design and advertising
Be introduced to ethics in graphic design

3. Definitions
Graphic design is a form of visual communication used to convey a message or information to an audience. It is a visual representation of an idea relying on the creation, selection, and organization of visual elements.
A graphic design solution can:
persuade
inform
identify
motivate
enhance
organize
brand
rouse
locate
engage
carry/convey many levels of meaning

4. Design
We don’t have to go to a museum or gallery to see graphic design—it surrounds us. Everything from a website to a poster to a mobile advertisement is visual communication—ideas, messages, and information conveyed through visual form aimed at a mass audience.
Graphic design and advertising are both communication design disciplines and are integral parts of contemporary popular visual culture.

5. Graphic Design Disciplines
Designers solve a wide range of visual communication problems working with a variety of clients—from a nonprofit organization attempting to reach families in need, to a brand promoting a new product, to a corporation that wants to go green, to a revitalized city’s transportation secretary who needs a wayfinding system.
Graphic design is categorized into disciples and formats. Some formats, such as posters and websites, cross disciplines.

6. Graphic Design Disciplines
Branding and identity design involve the creation of a systematic visual and verbal program intended to establish a consistent visual appearance and personality—a coordinated overarching identity—for a brand or group.
Identity design formats include logos, business card, letterhead, visual identity program, signage, environmental design, package design, websites, mobile web, as well as other formats across media.
Taubman: Branding
© Carbone Smolan Agency, New York

7. Graphic Design Disciplines
Corporate communication design involves any communication design formats used to communicate internally with employees, create materials for a sales force or other employees, as well as formats used by a corporation or organization to communicate externally with the public, other businesses, and stockholders.
Emphasis is on maintaining a consistent corporate voice throughout any and all applications.
Corporate communication formats include annual reports, brochures, sales kits, marketing collateral, corporate publications, business-to-business materials and applications, corporate websites and intranet, and new product offerings materials.

8. Graphic Design Disciplines
Editorial design involves the design of editorial content for print or screen; it is also called publication design.
The editorial designer makes content accessible, interprets content to improve communication, enhances the reader’s experience, creates visual interest, and establishes a voice, character, and structure for a publication.
Editorial design formats across media include book design, magazine design, newspaper design, newsletters, and booklets; on screen, in addition they include vlogs, mologs, and blogs.

9. Graphic Design Disciplines
Environmental design can be promotion, information, or identity design in constructed or natural environments and defining and marking interior and exterior commercial, educational, cultural, residential, and natural environments.
T-Mobile NBA All-Star Week: Environmental
© Hornall Anderson, Seattle

10. Graphic Design Disciplines
Experimental and/or self-initiated design covers a range of projects from designers’s self-initiated projects to collaborations with dancers, fine artists, musicians, and writers.
Illustration is a handmade unique image that accompanies or complements printed, digital, or spoken text.
It clarifies, enhances, illuminates, or demonstrates the message of the text.
Professional illustrators work in a variety of media and most often have uniquely identifiable styles.
Information design is a “highly specialized area of design that involves making large amounts of complex information clear and accessible to audiences of one to several hundred thousand” (definition by the AIGA).
The graphic designer’s task is to clearly communicate, make information easily accessible, and clarify and enrich any type of information for the user’s understanding.

11. Graphic Design Disciplines
Interactive or experience design is graphic design and advertising for screen-based media, including web, mobile, tablet, kiosks, digital public screens, or DVDs, in which the user interacts with the design.
Interactive design formats include websites, platforms, widgets, social media, video and image sharing media, installations, public screens, blogs, vlogs, games and other entertainment, and mobile apps.
Amazon Pepsi: Website
© Hornall Anderson, Seattle

12. Graphic Design Disciplines
Motion graphics is screen-based communication design moving (sequentially) in duration, including film title design, TV graphics design, feature film and video openers, feature film end titling, videos, mobile motion graphics, motion for video-sharing platforms, and promotional motion presentations for any screen.
Paraiso Travel: Film
© HUSH, New York

13. Graphic Design Disciplines
Package design involves the complete strategic planning and design of the form, structure, and appearance of a product’s package, which functions as casing, promotes a brand, presents information, and becomes a brand experience.
Package design includes structural packaging, packaging and visual identity systems, packaging graphics, new brand development, and self-promotion.
Cookie Treats: Packaging
© Modern Dog Design Co., Seattle

14. Graphic Design Disciplines
Promotional design and advertising involve generating and creating specific visual and verbal messages constructed to inform, persuade, promote, provoke, or motivate people on behalf of a brand or group.
Promotional design and advertising encompass a very wide range of formats across media, including book covers or posters, integrated media campaigns, including television commercials, outdoor advertising, unconventional formats, mobile media, social media, , direct mail, videos, websites, apps, platforms, and more.
Honens: Posters
© WAX, Calgary, Alberta

15. Graphic Design Disciplines
Typographic design is a highly specialized area of graphic design focusing on the creation and design of letterforms, typefaces, and type treatments.
Lettering is the drawing of letterforms by hand (as opposed to type generated on a computer).
Typographic design includes custom and proprietary font design for digital type foundries, hand lettering, handmade type, and custom typography.
Urban Outfitters: Typography
© Mike Perry

16. Design Media We see graphic design across media:
Print (printed matter in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, booklets, posters, covers, corporate communication, signage, outdoor billboards, business cards, etc.)
Screen-based (desktop web, mobile web, social media, tablet, public screens, installations, motion, etc.)
Environments (commercial, educational, government, museums, public spaces, etc.)

17. Working in the Field
The main places of employment for a communication design professional are design studios, branding firms, publishers, digital/interactive agencies, advertising agencies, integrated communication firms, marketing companies, and companies, corporations, institutions, governments, schools, and organizations with in-house design departments.
Collaboration: More than ever before, graphic design is collaborative.
From developing strategy through design implementation, graphic designers often work in partnership with others.
Collaboration might begin at the outset when different firms work together to solve a communication design problem.

18. Collaboration
From developing a strategy to negotiating a fee to choosing a printer, the client and graphic designer collaborate.
A graphic designer also works with other visual communications professionals
Creative directors
Design directors
Associate creative directors
Production experts
Photographers, illustrators, copywriters, and art directors
Specialists
(interactive / type/lettering / architects / film directors / producers / casting directors / talent (actors, musicians, and models) / music houses / IT professionals / psychologists / social anthropologists / market researchers)
Printers and printers’ sales representatives

19. Why Design Matters
As designer Paula Scher wisely said, “Design matters.”
Most people know that graphic designers create solutions for brands and corporations. Communication design helps drive the economy, provide information to the public, and promote competition (which can result in the research and development of goods and services).
There is another side of graphic design that is less well known but vital to society: designers use their expertise to inform people about important social and political issues and promote good causes.

20. Ethics in Graphic Design
Each designer is responsible for practicing in ethical ways.
Any design problem can be solved in a great number of ways, and each solution has different economic and social benefits and consequences.
Communication design professionals are among the leading architects of mass communication and its artifacts, creating images that reflect, help delineate, and describe contemporary society. With that function comes responsibility.
“Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving” U.S. Department of Transportation / National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Sponsor) © Mullen (Volunteer Agency)

21. Demands of the Profession
The graphic design profession demands critical thinking, creative thinking, and creative and technical skills.
A broad liberal arts education would best equip a graphic designer to understand the context of design assignments and propose meaningful solutions, as well as to best understand the meaning of images.
Both theory and skills are necessary for practice.

22. Summary
Graphic design and advertising both play a key role in the appearance of almost all print, film, and screen-based media, forming society’s popular visual landscape.
Graphic designers and advertising art directors are the creative professionals who, through ethical practice, use constructed visual communication to convey messages and information to an audience.
Visual communication can persuade, inform, identify, motivate, enhance, organize, brand, rouse, locate, engage, and carry or convey many levels of meaning.

23. Summary
Visual communication professionals work in a variety of settings—design studios, branding firms, companies, corporations and organizations with in-house design departments, publishers, interactive agencies, unconventional marketing firms, advertising agencies, and integrated communication firms, as well as in their own studios as freelancers. They collaborate with a good number of other creative professionals as well as with their clients.
Design matters: Visual communication helps society in a great number of ways, from driving the economy to informing the public.
Visual communication professionals need to be well educated with a strong liberal arts background and excellent training in design and writing. They must also be conversant in ethics.