Identify: The Fundamental Need of Identification

Helping people to identify the client (or message) through graphic design can be achieved by creating a visual representation that is consistent. The consistency enables the audience to remember, and later identify, the visual representation to the association that it signifies. The object of design often used to achieve this task is a logo, defined by Kevin Budelmann et al. as a graphic representation of a brand (Budelmann, Kim, & Wozniak, 2010, p. 7). The design project within the class is supplemented with the understanding of the design methodology that introduces the students to several methods that can help them in design. The inclusion of design methods is believed to create a systematic approach towards design, in which design is seen as a singular component, but an interweaving process and objects.

Visual representations are often also found on illustrations, in which visuals are meant to illustrate a certain story or message. Another discipline taught in this semester to highlight the necessary practice is photography. Photography trains the students to have a better keen eye in which he/she needed to capture elements from real life to a still image that has yet to represent a certain message or evoke a certain emotion. The idea that photography had to derive form from real-life showcases its demand and limitations while inspiring students to be creative to deliver messages.

An additional factor that is included in this stage is the need to understand the client or communicator. The need to understand the entity yet to be represented pictures a need to be able to draw things that perhaps the entity itself isn’t aware of. By doing so, the designer is able not to mimic and deliver, but also to suggest and represent ideas that lay dormant within the entity itself. This dimension adds a new layer to the practice of designer, in which he/she isn’t a craftsman crafting artistic work, but also an artist that draw possibilities that suggests an alternative way to see things.