About graphic design
Nowadays, the concept of “design” has expanded its boundaries so much that it is already difficult for us to imagine the world around us without it. Design has penetrated almost all spheres of human activity. This fully applies to this type of design art as graphic design. We come across its manifestations everywhere – we buy newspapers, books and glossy magazines, pay attention to flyers, labels and colorful posters, we come across graphic design in the printing industry and the Internet.
Graphic design has turned not so much into the creation of attractive pictures, but into a change in the visual and communicative environment that surrounds a person in everyday life. Today, graphic design is a whole science that combines the calculating analyst with the creative abilities of the artist.
Although this design industry can be called relatively young, since the official date of its birth is considered to be 1964, when the First Congress of the International Society of Graphic Design Organizations was held, nevertheless, the origins of graphic design date back to ancient times. After all, even the most ancient and primitive drawings made by human hand can be considered as the initial stage in the development of graphic design.
Over time, a person came closer and closer to the realization that expressing information through graphic symbols is much more effective than simple text or oral speech. An example of this in modern life can be various warning signals on the roads, transmitting the necessary minimum of information to the driver in a short time.
The advent of the era of book printing played an important role in the formation and development of graphic design. In Europe, the history of graphic design as a separate field of activity related to the number of artistic and professional disciplines dates back to the Middle Ages, when the first, still rather primitive printing presses became relatively accessible to publishers.
The emergence of graphic design as a specific area of ​​creativity is directly related to the gradual merging of two directions – commercial art associated with the massive release of posters, newspaper and magazine publications in the late 19th – first half of the 20th century, and contemporary fine art. The widespread dissemination of photography, the development of cinematography, followed by the expansion of television and video, contributed to the growth of interest in visual forms of expression and perception.
Another important stage associated with the development of graphic design is the emergence of digital technologies and the creation of personal computers, which gave graphic designers the latest tools that allowed them to radically change their work. Computers made it possible to create all the blanks in a software environment, which allows designers to experiment with different solutions and easily correct their mistakes if necessary. In the age of computer technology and the Internet, graphic design has become more accessible and free.
As we can see, graphic design has come a long way in its development. If earlier graphic design was understood exclusively as an artistic arrangement and installation on a printed sheet of text with an image in the process of creating a visual and verbal series, today the scope of activity of graphic designers has expanded significantly. Graphic design is currently understood as the creation of visual (graphic) images in order to embody certain ideas. In the modern world, the importance of visual forms of expression has grown enormously.
Graphic design carries an informative function (in order to clarify a variety of issues to people) and emotional (to evoke certain feelings in a person and form the desired opinion). It is obvious that graphic design is closely intertwined with advertising and visual arts, and therefore it uses roughly similar concepts, elements, principles and methods. For example, if the main thing for advertising is to sell, then for graphic design it is to convey an idea to people. To solve this problem, graphic designers use a variety of visual communications.
It should be noted that graphic design is somewhat different from ordinary or, for example, industrial design, where the main task is to make everything that surrounds a person in everyday life convenient and beautiful. Graphic design is not concerned with the artistic design of objects, but with the world of information. Graphic design tools can be various visual communications – from a short advertisement to a huge electronic information board.
The graphic designer works with graphic images that can nudge the viewer to the action or conclusions that the creator of the information message needs. Thus, a graphic designer tries to translate information into a visual language that most people can understand. With the help of graphic images, he is able to convey to the addressee almost any information.