SCREEN DESIGN PRINCIPLES 1 (p1 of 2)

What is graphic design?

• Visual Communication
• It involves communication, design principles, aesthetics, marketing, and psychology.
• It's about creativity: concepts, ideas, solving problems, taking risks, and devising unique and surprising solutions.
• A graphic designer must solve a specific problem for someone else. This is done by creating a design that is original and communicates a message to a specific audience.
• Graphic design is design with a purpose. The design has a message that is communicated in a creative way. It is --
  • a marriage of images and words.
  • a visual language, with simplicity and legibility
  • a vehicle to communicate specific information to a specific audience, and
  • a cooperative effort between designer, client, photographer, and all the team members.

Toor quotes Philip Meggs, a graphic designer and author, from his book, A History of Graphic Design. "As has happened so often in the past, the tools are changing with the relentless advance of technology, but the essence of graphic design remains unchanged. The essence is to give order to the information, form to ideas, and expression and feeling to artifacts that document human experience (Meggs as quoted by Toor, p. 4)."

Now that we know what graphic design is. How do we go about doing it?

The thinking process

Defining the problem

• who is the audience?
• what is your objective?
• what is the message?
• what format will you use to convey the message?
• what is the image you wish to project for your client, and what has the organization done before? How will the people involved react to the change?
• what are the current trends?

Discovering current trends

• look at magazines -- great excuse to spend time in the bookstore
• visit museums, galleries, look at art periodicals, browse the Web
• look at the signs you see everywhere

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