Visual Journalist

Visual Journalist

Visual Journalists, also known as Infographic Artists create information graphics or Infographics; visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics are used anywhere where information needs to be explained quickly or simply, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. They are also used extensively as tools by computer scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians to ease the process of developing and communicating conceptual information. They are applied in all aspects of scientific visualization.

Multimedia Developer

Multimedia Developer

Multimedia developers may come from a graphic design or illustration background and apply those talents to motion, sound, or interactivity. Motion designers are graphic designers for motion. Animators are illustrators for motion. Videographers are photographers for motion. Multimedia developers may also image edit, sound edit, program, or compose multimedia just as multimedia specialists.

Content Developer

Content developer is a generic term used for describing illustrators, visual image developers, and multimedia developers in software and web development. The term has a broader scope that includes non-graphical content as well. The generic name for content that is used in a digital composition are digital assets.

Visual Image Developer

Similar to illustration are other methods of developing images such as photography, 3D modeling, and image editing. Creative professionals in these positions are not usually called illustrators, but are utilized the same way. Photographers are likely to freelance. 3D modelers are likely to be employed for long-term projects. Image editing is usually a secondary skill to either of the above, but may also be a specialty to aid web development, software development, or multimedia development in a job title known as multimedia specialist. Although these skills may require technical knowledge, graphic design skills may be applied as well.

Illustrator

Illustrators conceptualize and create illustrations that represent an idea or a story through two-dimensional or three-dimensional images. Illustrators may do drawings for printed materials such as books, magazines, and other publications, or for commercial products such as textiles, packaging, wrapping paper, greeting cards, calendars, stationery, and more. Illustrators use many different media, from pencil and paint to digital formatting, to prepare and create their illustrations. An illustrator consults with clients in order to determine what illustrations will best meet the story they are trying to tell, or what message they are trying to communicate. Illustrating may be a secondary skill requirement of graphic design or a specialty skill of a freelance artist, usually known for a unique style of illustrating. Illustration may be published separately as in fine art. However, illustrations are usually inserted into page layouts for communication design in the context of graphic design professions.

Logo Designer

Logo Designer

The job of a logo designer is to provide a new and innovative way to express the key message of a company through an image. Logo designers take the information given to them by the client and work, using their own creativity along with marketing strategy to find an appropriate image that their client can use to represent what they are trying to encourage, or sell, or what they are about. It is not likely that a company will specialize in logo design or have a position for a designated logo designer. Art directors and graphic designers usually perform logo designs.

Hands-on Graphic Designers

Hands-on Graphic Designers

The following are positions or responsibilities, not necessarily titles, held by art directors and

graphic designers:

Brand identity developerBrand identity design is concerned with the visual aspects of a company or organization’s brand or identity. A brand identity design is the visual element that represents how a company wants to be seen; it is the company’s visual identity, and is how a company illustrates its ‘image.’ A company’s brand identity can be represented in terms of design through a unique logo, or signage, and is then often integrated throughout all the elements of a company’s materials such as business cards, stationery, packaging, media advertising, promotions, and more. Brand identity may include logo design. Brand

Art Production Manager

Art Production Manager

Art production managers or traffic managers oversee the production aspect of art to improve efficiency and cost effectiveness. Art production managers supervise artists or advise the supervisors of artists. Creative directors and art directors often assume the role of art production managers, especially when production cost is not a critical concern.

Art Director

Art Director

Art directors make sure that illustrators and production artists produce and complete their work on time and to the creative director or client's satisfaction. Art directors also play a major role in the development of a project by making decisions on the visual elements of the project, and by giving the final say on the selection of models, art, props, colors, and other elements. Art directors need advanced training in graphic design as they often do artwork and designing themselves. However, an art director's time may be consumed doing supervisory and administrative work.

Creative Director

Creative Director

Creative directors are in charge of a creative team that produces artwork to be displayed in advertising campaigns, or on products. A creative team can consist of artists (e.g. art Redirectors, graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, copywriters, production artists) and a production staff. Creative directors initiate or inspire creative ideas and make sure that the art works include those ideas to the client's satisfaction. Creative directors usually are promoted from an art director or copywriter position. A creative directors job may also involve responsibilities usually associated with a client representative or a project manager.

Graphic Art Managers

Graphic Art Managers

The following are positions or responsibilities and usually titles, held by experienced graphic designers in related management roles:

Multimedia

Multimedia_2

Multimedia is usually recorded and played, displayed or accessed by information content processing devices, such as computerized and electronic devices, but can also be part of a live performance. Multimedia (as an adjective) also describes electronic media devices used to store and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media in fine art, but with a broader scope. The term "rich media" is synonymous for interactive multimedia. Hypermedia can be considered one particular multimedia application.

Multimedia

Multimedia_1

Multimedia is media that utilizes a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only utilize traditional forms of printed or hand-produced text and still graphics. In general, multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms.

Web Design

Web Design_5

With growing specialization within communication design and information technology fields, there is a strong tendency to draw a clear line between web design specifically for web pages and web development for the overall logistics of all web-based services.

Web Design

Web Design-4

Dynamic pages adapt their content and/or appearance depending on the end-user’s input or interaction or changes in the computing environment (user, time, database modifications, etc.) Content can be changed on the client side (end-user's computer) by using client-side scripting languages (JavarScript, JScript, Actionscript, media players and PDF reader plug-ins, etc.) to alter DOM elements (DHTML). Dynamic content is often compiled on the server utilizing server-side scripting languages (PHP, ASP, rPerl, Coldfusion, JSP, Python, etc.). Both approaches are usually used in complex applications.

Web Design

Web Design_3

Improvements in the various browsers' compliance with W3C standards prompted a widespread acceptance of XHTML and XML in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to position and manipulate web page elements. The latest standards and proposals aim at leading to the various browsers' ability to deliver a wide variety of media and accessibility options to the client possibly without employing plug-ins.

Typically web pages are classified as static or dynamic.
Static pages don’t change content and layout with every request unless a human (web master or programmer) manually updates the page.

Web design

Web design_2

Web design is a process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media content delivery via Internet in the form of technologies (such as markup languages) suitable for interpretation and display by a web browser or other web-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

The intent of web design is to create a web site (a collection of electronic files residing on one or more web servers) that presents content (including interactive features or interfaces) to the end user in the form of web pages once requested. Such elements as text, forms, and bit-mapped images (GIFs, JPEGs, PNGs) can be placed on the page using HTML, XHTML, or XML tags. Displaying more complex media (vector graphics, animations, videos, sounds) usually requires plug-ins such as Flash, QuickTime, Java run-time environment, etc. Plug-ins are also embedded into web pages by using HTML or XHTML tags.

Web Design

Graphic designers are often involved in web design. Combining visual communication skills with the interactive communication skills of user interaction and online branding, graphic designers often work with web developers to create both the look and feel of a web site and enhance the online experience of web site visitors.

In the job field, many companies look for someone who can do both graphic design and the web application development involved in web design, including programming. There is a great deal of debate in the professional design community about whether this trend is positive, or if graphic designers are being over-tasked with unrelated skills and disciplines. A collaborative web-design team may split the tasks between graphic designers and software engineers.

Web design

Graphic designers are often involved in web design. Combining visual communication skills with the interactive communication skills of user interaction and online branding, graphic designers often work with web developers to create both the look and feel of a web site and enhance the online experience of web site visitors.

In the job field, many companies look for someone who can do both graphic design and the web application development involved in web design, including programming. There is a great deal of debate in the professional design community about whether this trend is positive, or if graphic designers are being over-tasked with unrelated skills and disciplines. A collaborative web-design team may split the tasks between graphic designers and software engineers.

Computers versus the creative process

A graphic designer may use sketches to explore multiple or complex ideas quickly. without the potential distractions of technical difficulties from software malfunctions or learning the software. Hand rendered comps are often used to get approval of an idea execution before investing time to produce finished visuals on a computer or in paste-up. The same thumbnail sketches or rough drafts on paper may be used to rapidly refine and produce the idea on the computer in a hybrid process. This hybrid process is especially useful in logo design where a software learning curve may detract from a creative thought process. The traditional-design/computer-production hybrid process may be used for freeing ones creativity in page layout or image development as well.[citation needed] Traditional graphic designers may employ computer-savvy production artists to produce their ideas from sketches, without needing to learn the computer skills themselves. However, this practice is less utilized since the advent of desktop publishing and its integration with most graphic design courses.

Computers versus the creative process

Computers versus the creative process_1

There is some debate whether computers enhance the creative process of graphic design. Rapid production from the computer allows many designers to explore multiple ideas quickly with more detail than what could be achieved by traditional hand-rendering or paste-up on paper, moving the designer through the creative process more quickly.However, being faced with limitless choices does not help isolate the best design solution and can lead to designers endlessly iterating without a clear design outcome.

Tools for Design

Tools for Design_3
Computers are generally considered to be an indispensable tool used in the graphic design industry. Computers and software applications are generally seen, by creative professionals, as more effective production tools than traditional methods. However, some designers continue to use manual and traditional tools for production, such as Milton Glaser.New ideas can come by way of experimenting with tools and methods. Some designers explore ideas using pencil and paper to avoid creating within the limits of whatever computer fonts, clipart, stock photos, or rendering filters (e.g. Kai's Power Tools) are available on any particular configuration. Others use many different mark-making tools and resources from computers to sticks and mud as a means of inspiring creativity. One of the key features of graphic design is that it makes a tool out of appropriate image selection in order to convey meaning.

Tools for Design

Tools for Design_2

In the mid 1980s, the arrival of desktop publishing and graphic art software applications introduced a generation of designers to computer image manipulation and creation that had previously been manually executed. Computer graphic design enabled designers to instantly see the effects of layout or typographic changes without using any ink, and to simulate the effects of traditional media without requiring a lot of space. However, traditional tools such as pencils or markers are often used to develop ideas even when computers are used for finalization.

Tools for Design

Tools for Design_1:

Critical, observational, quantitative and analytic thinking are required for design layouts and rendering. If the executor is merely following a sketch, script or instructions (as may be supplied by an art director) they are not usually considered the author. The layout is produced using external traditional or digital image editing tools. Selecting the appropriate tools for each project is critical in how the project will be perceived by its audience.

The Twentieth Century Design

Notable names in mid-century modern design include Adriarn Frutiger, designer of the typefaces Univers and Frutiger; Paul Rand, who, from the late 1930s until his death in 1996, took the principles of the Bauhaus and applied them to popular advertising and logo design, helping to create a uniquely American approach to European minimalism while becoming one of the principal pioneers of the subset of graphic design known as corporate identity; and Josef Müller-Brockmann, who designed posters in a severe yet accessible manner typical of the 1950s and 1960s.

Twentieth Century Design

They pioneered production techniques and stylistic devices used throughout the twentieth century. The following years saw graphic design in the modern style gain widespread acceptance and application. A booming post-World War II American economy established a greater need for graphic design, mainly advertising and packaging. The emigration of the German Bauhaus school of design to Chicago in 1937 brought a "mass-produced" minimalism to America; sparking a wild fire of "modern" architecture and design.

Jan Tschichold codified the principles of modern typography in his 1928 book, New Typography. He later repudiated the philosophy he espoused in this book as being fascistic, but it remained very influential.[citation needed] Tschichold, Bauhaus typographers such as Herbert Bayer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky are the fathers of graphic design[citation needed] as we know it today.

Twentieth Century Design

The cyan blue pattern, the US flag, presidential seal and the lettering were all designed at different times and combined in this one final design. Graphic design is applied in virtually every organization or society. There are virtually no limits to the size and applications of graphic design.

The term graphic design was first coined by William Addison Dwiggins, an American book designer in the early 20th century.

The signage in the London Underground is a classic [citation needed] of the modern era and used a font designed by Edward Johnston in 1916.

In the 1920s, Soviet constructivism applied 'intellectual production' in different spheres of production. The movement saw individualistic art as useless in revolutionary Russia and thus moved towards creating objects for utilitarian purposes. They designed buildings, theater sets, posters, fabrics, clothing, furniture, logos, menus, etc.

The Start of Industrial Design

In late 19th century Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, the movement began to separate graphic design from fine art. Piet Mondrian is known as the father of graphic design. He was a fine artist, but his use of grids inspired the modern grid system used today in advertising, print and web layout.
In 1849, Henry Cole became on of the major forces in design education in Great Britain, informing the government of the important of design in his Journal of Design and Manufactures. He organized the Great Exhibition as a celebration of modern industrial technology and Victorian design.
From 1892 to 1896 William Morris' Kelmscott Press published books that are some of the most significant of the graphic design products of the Arts and Crafts movement, and made a very lucrative business of creating books of great stylistic refinement and selling them to the wealthy for a premium. Morris proved that a market existed for works of graphic design in their own right and helped pioneer the separation of design from production and from fine art. The work of the Kelmscott Press is characterized by its obsession with historical styles. This historicism was, however, important as it amounted to the first significant reaction to the stale state of nineteenth-century graphic design. Morris' work, along with the rest of the Private Press movement, directly influenced Art Nouveau and is indirectly responsible for developments in early twentieth century graphic design in general.

The Invention of Printing

During the Tang dynasty (618–906) bettween the 4th and 7th century A.D. wood blocks were cut to print on textiles and later to reproduce Buddhist texts. A Buddhist scripture printed in 868 is the earliest known printed book. Beginning in the 11th century, longer scrolls and books were produced using movable type printing making books widely available during the Song dyanasty (960–1279). Sometime around 1450, Johann Gutenberg's printing press made books widely available in Europe. The book design of Aldus Manutius developed the book structure which would become the foundation of western publication design. This era of graphic design is called Humanist or Old Style.

The Invention of Printing

During the Tang dynasty (618–906) bettween the 4th and 7th century A.D. wood blocks were cut to print on textiles and later to reproduce Buddhist texts. A Buddhist scripture printed in 868 is the earliest known printed book. Beginning in the 11th century, longer scrolls and books were produced using movable type printing making books widely available during the Song dyanasty (960–1279). Sometime around 1450, Johann Gutenberg's printing press made books widely available in Europe. The book design of Aldus Manutius developed the book structure which would become the foundation of western publication design. This era of graphic design is called Humanist or Old Style.

History of graphic design

Graphic Design spans the history of humankind from the caves of Lascaux to the dazzling neons of Ginza. In both this lengthy history and in the relatively recent explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries, there is sometimes a blurring distinction and over-lapping of advertising art, graphic design and fine rart. After all, they share many of the same elements, theories, principles, practices and langurages, and sometimes the same benefactor or client. In advertising art the ultimate objective is the sale of goods and services. In graphic design, "the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that document human experience.

Early



The paintings in the caves of Lascaux around 14,000 BC and the birth of written language in the third or fourth millennium BC are both significant milestones in the history of graphic design and other fields which hold roots to graphic design.

Creativity and the Design Process

Graphic Design

Graphic Design is the process of communicating visually using text and images to present information. Graphic design practice embraces a range of cognitive skills, aesthetics and crafts, including typography, visual arts and page layout.


Like other forms of design, graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated.
Graphic design is used whenever visual complexity and creativity are applied to the presentation of text and imagery.

The Design profession

Designers are innately creative people. They make use of their creativity, artistry, and knowledge of practical skills to turn their creative vision into plans for our Built Environments, Websites, Clothes, Advertisements, Vehicles, Media, and Surroundings.


To be a good designer you have to take three things into account:

1)What your client needs and has the resources for,

2)The primary function of the design, and

3)How it will appeal to customers.


Often the first step is solid research of the preferred design characteristics like cost, safety issues, availability of materials, size, etc.

Creativity

1.FORM/FUNCTION Does form follow function? Is the form or shape suitable to the intended purpose of the object?


2.APPROPRIATENESS OF MATERIALS Does the material used suit the function? Are the materials used appropriate and practical for the purpose?

3. HONEST USE OF MATERIALS (A two part question:)

A.Are the materials used honestly?Does the material look like itself, or is it disguised?

4. PURPOSE What is the purpose of the applied decorative design? Is it necessary? Does it enhance the object's function?

5. CONCEPT Is the applied decorative design harmonious in design and idea with the purpose of the object?

6. INNOVATION Is the design a new expression, or merely a superficial change? Does it have individuality, or is it a cliche?

7. LONGEVITY Has the form and design an appeal that can be sustained during the length of time the object will be used?

Creativity is a quality that is highly valued, but not always well understood.

Creativity is the ability to see connections and relationships where others have not.


definitions of creativity are typically descriptive of activity that results:
in producing or bringing about something partly or wholly new;
in investing an existing object with new properties or characteristics;
in imagining new possibilities that were not conceived of before; and
in seeing or performing something in a manner different from what was thought possible or normal previously.

the creative person,
the creative product,
the creative process,
and the creative 'press' or environment. Each of these factors is usually present in creative activity.