I only went to art school right, so I’m only an artist?
Having been told numerous times and hearing fellow designers being told, “Design is easy, it’s only art”! Artist will tell you that their profession isn’t easy and designers will tell you exactly the same thing. Another thing people assume is that because I’m a designer I’m really good at drawing. Truth is I can’t draw, not how a true artist would draw. I can sketch out concepts but to draw a person you’ve got the wrong girl.
Yes graphic design is an art form, yes graphic design is part of the art department of a university or art school, but they are very different. That being said some artists become designers and some design can be art.
Take this piece of design by David Carson, this is a spread from a Raygun magazine, some people’s views on this could be that it’s weird and arty, but then for Raygun it worked for the target audience and is a great piece of design.
Carson’s collage style and unconventional typography is really famous across the design, music and Surfing world, this style of design doesn’t work everywhere but then Carson isn’t everyone’s type of designer. A brand like VW probably wouldn’t approach Carson because of his style as it wouldn’t work with their corporate look. But a punk band may consider Carson as his style could work more with their styling and messaging.
I recently went to Victoria Art Gallery in Bristol to visit a Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition. He was a French artist, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator in the late 1800s. This particular exhibition also includes works for other artist of the era whose art was used in a design form. A lot of these pieces were used as advertisement posters for the Moulin Rouge and other dance performances in France. The design of these is great for the application the artist showing movement of the performers costumes and how the tones of the print have been created by early Lithograph print. What I’m saying here is that Toulouse-Lautrec was an artist but had the opportunity and skills to use his art to create great pieces of design.
Then if we look at Paul Rand a graphic designer who famously designed the original IBM logo. This is a hugely successful piece of design because of the simplicity and intelligence he used. To me when people think graphic design this is what they would expect, something simple, clean and intelligent. Maybe this is why people assume it’s easy, because design looks simple but to make a simple piece of design and still be successful is difficult.
This type of logo that uses icons to replace letters is known as a rebus.
In summary graphic design can take different forms dependent on the designer, the individual they are designing for and the target audience. All of the pieces of design I’ve mentioned here are all very different but they are all hugely successful in their own right and whether you believe that graphic design is ‘easy’ because it’s ‘only art’ then I hope I’ve shown you here that it is far from that.
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LB 🐝