What does being a modern graphic designer really involve? Elliot Forde 00359107 BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Responding to Creative Contexts 1,937 Words
Introduction
We often simplify our role in what is a diverse visual world by calling ourselves ‘graphic designers’ (even just ‘designers’); we actually tend to invest ourselves in specific subject areas like illustration, interactivity, or communication. I think that often leaves us with a degree of tunnel vision and upon looking for work or experience, we find that the description of a graphic designer is still diversifying behind our own backs and skill gaps widen. I will be exploring the perception of where a graphic designer stands in terms of their expected skill set in the 21st century. This includes researching if we can survive creatively and financially by choosing to apply ourselves in one or two areas when the job market is looking for an ‘everyman’. I will reflect upon our reliance on the screen and the digital medium at large, against the uptake of traditional drawing and printing methods. My main aim here will be to discover whether we can realistically branch out into other design mediums and be considered more employable, without diluting the skills we have or redirecting our attention away from our interests. Does expectation exceed our ability as designers starting out in the real world and do we let the ability and experience of other people demotivate us too early in an age where self-promotion is key?
Fig 1.(Robichaud,2014)
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“You'll be someone who lives and breathes design and has a genuine passion for creativity…” (Jo
Wade Ltd, 2015)
is a sentence that provides me
with a sense of both engagement and trepidation at once as I scroll through a popular design jobs board. This high paying Senior Designer role calls for a high-calibre individual with years of experience as the listing goes on, yet on a more instinctive level I believe this role could equally relate to any student or young creative that has ever picked up their sketchbook to while away an afternoon with sketches, diagrams or countless font ideas. We are taught in design to understand that every discipline has its own sets of rules, methods, specialised technologies and technical requirements. (Dabner, Stewart, and Zempol, 2014, pp. 8 – 9)
For a photographer, this
could mean understanding the rule-of-thirds or the way their camera operates with the available light. Conversely, a good editorial designer understands the way their kerning and other typographic choices affect the readability of their final outcome. I feel and occasionally fear that these boundaries of individual craft and practice have started to dissolve in the creative job market and our own perceptions, in order to herald the designer that will step firmly out of their comfort zone and disregard their self-proclaimed specialisms. “We’re architects. We’re user experience experts. We’re psychologists. We’re problem solvers.”
(Petty, 2014)
This sums up the feelings of one
designer in their modern role as a freelancer or studio member. It’s not sustainable to become well-grounded in your chosen field of design - even if that’s supported by years of technical training, understanding of theory or a visually strong portfolio. How this talent is translated for our clients and peers is increasingly taking precedence. After all: the world at large deals with emotional responses, social structure and currency, not printing methods and pixels.
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I think the growing importance of our self-development as human beings during our study years is going to help prevent the homogenisation of each and every ‘designer’ and highlight the value of our own personality and opinions. Kate Moross agrees that this had a major role in her earlier years finding work: “Looking back, it was my enthusiasm that people responded to. Many people for whom I created work for nothing early on ended up employing me for paid work later on.” (Moross,
2014)
There can be a tendency for younger designers to experience ‘impostor syndrome’, making it difficult for them to internalise their talents and achievements when others in their industry have more years of experience and presence, naturally with more work to show for it. I believe that generalisations like ‘designer’ tend to accentuate this and draw thought to our own weaknesses and skill gaps. Continuous improvement is a trait we all require to succeed, it even goes by the word ‘Kaizen’ in Japan where it’s often fundamental to business. What we fail to see is that this improvement can only come with time and plenty of failed attempts. I feel it will only harm the design industry if we continue to nurture our own talents solely behind closed doors, fuelled by high expectations and natural competition. The modern designer is likely to take the best parts of their own personality and technical ability, then reach out to their peers to fill in the gaps, as I feel Greg Tariff is alluding to: “Whatever ego you may have had in the past, it is time to throw it out the door and embrace the creative talent of those around you.”
(Tariff, 2014)
Fig 2.(Chase, 2013)
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It’s sometimes thought that we “learn how to learn” at design school (Shaughnessy, 2010)
and from personal experience, this often means taking
a wider view to understanding our privilege as 21st century humans. We are surrounded, maybe bombarded, with digital information on portable smartphones or giant electronic screens as the cost of production drops and our technical literacy grows with every new generation. This can result in a double-edged sword for young designers to contend with, because we’re trying to reach an audience that engages regularly with the visuals that appear on their devices, yet as a result we are disassociated with the hundreds of years of tactile and physical craftsmanship that preceded the pixel. A printing job that might have taken a skilled typesetter hours of precision and preparation can now be replicated in minutes with the right software. I don’t think it’s realistic to oppose this too strongly as an emerging designer, but it would be wise for us to embrace what might sometimes appear nostalgic or obsolete: like film photography, printmaking or handdrawn work. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re being duped? I do, when it comes to all the promises of technology and how it relates to the field we work in. There’s always the promise of being able to design better and faster than I was able to last year, last month, last week.” (Chen
Design Associates, 2006)
It’s with this quote that I see disillusionment with technology in the eyes of a design professional. If we’re trained to work only more efficiently or cost-effectively and not more creatively, we might stand to lose our sense of imagination and conceptual freedom in the next few generations. We can all become better at working in any industry when it comes to technical skills and knowing where the right shortcuts are placed, but I feel the best designers will try to sidestep the formulaic nature of their work on the screen at times and reconnect with the niche passion that turned them into more fully fledged designers. For many of us, this is away from the screens that were few and far-between when we were younger.
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From another side of the argument, the prevalence of the internet could mean a boost to those who embrace it. One of the easiest ways for a graphic design graduate to cut through the noise of competition seems to involve making the right impression on their personal websites and social media outlets. The Art Director for a broadsheet newspaper suggests that they would rather see silly doodles than pristine portfolios, meaning they tend to look at blogs and Tumblr pages. (Jenkins,
2014)
Many graphic designers are seeking out the additional skills that once fell into the ‘desired’ category of a studio job description, in order to diversify their professional offering and bring more to the negotiation table. For some this means learning to code and design for the web, while an avid illustrator may choose to pair their existing skills with new screen-printing knowledge. “The dissolving of traditional subject areas and increased flexibility provided by digital environments has contributed to an exciting expansion of commercial opportunities for many artists.” (Davies
and Brazell, 2013)
We can establish that there seems to be a trend for traditionalist designers of their respective craft to adopt the internet and use it to highlight and promote their existing, sometimes offline work.
Fig 3.(Goldberg, 2015)
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With this creative freedom afforded to us by the availability of online tutorials, show and tell websites and design blogs - graphic designers can find themselves overcome with ready-made visual information that makes it easier to be inspired and even blur the lines of stealing when it comes to other people’s ideas and stylistic execution. “It feels like that freedom will bring you creativity, but really it’s hindering it. It actually promotes indecision.”
(McCabe, 2014)
I, therefore, believe designers need to employ selectivity when it comes to their chosen skills, even in the face of employers that might ask us to be a jack of all trades. It seems like a better idea to hone a few select skills to become as strong as possible, rather than push incomplete or sloppy work that came about as a result of a rush to compete with other designers. Outsourcing and collaboration will after all benefit the industry by encouraging better work altogether as well as allowing us to share knowledge, rather than limiting ourselves to an article or video tutorial that will teach us in precise and restrictive ways. We should sometimes be allowed to make mistakes and develop, rather than gain new skills as the result of a tested, perfected process. I feel the modern graphic designer’s toolbox will encompass our key passions, perhaps creating hand-drawn typography or creating editorials with strong digital-led aesthetics, while taking on the additional skills that boost our work and put it in front of the right people. For the hand-drawn artist, this could mean learning how to effectively vectorise their work and collage it with photography and illustration for the screen - while the editorial designer might fascinate themselves with paper stocks and lithographic printing. We are slowly but surely learning to enhance our existing skills by bolstering on relevant and interesting ways to present it to the world at large.
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Conclusions
We are only human: creatures of habit that love methodology and familiarity in the way we live and work as designers. This means we become easily obsessed with the progress of our peers and sometimes feel limited by our current understanding and technical skills. I feel that the modern graphic designer is one that understands and embraces their current standing in this competitive industry and seeks to hone their talent with patience and perseverance, instead of fawning after the creative ability of others. We can boost our existing presence on the job market and in the design community simply by looking beyond our ability to be visually literate and technically skilled and into the way our work is communicated to others, as three teachers suggest in ‘Graphic Design School’. (Dabner,
Stewart, and
Zempol, 2014, p. 6)
It is straightforward but sometimes forgotten that we’re the sum of our individual parts as creatives. If we go on to generalise the role of the ‘graphic designer’ too much, we might encourage a generation that forgets to sometimes fail and retry.
We compete for the image perfection in front of our peers. I believe the modern designer will seek to embrace their imperfections and allow their abilities to foster by way of collaboration, not competition.
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List of illustrations
Figure 1. Robichaud, M. (2014) #startuplife Figure 2. Chase, M. (2013) Cloud Collaboration Figure 3. Goldberg, J. (2015) WIP Personal Website
Reference List
Associates, C. D. and Mabry, M. (2006) Fingerprint: The Art of Using Hand-Made Elements in Graphic Design. United States: How Design Books Dabner, D., Stewart, S. and Zempol, E. (2014) Graphic Design School: A Foundation Course for Graphic Designers Working in Print, Moving Image and Digital Media. United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson Davies, J. and Brazell, D. (2013) Becoming a successful illustrator. london: Bloomsbury USA Academic Dennis, T. (2014) ‘Upgrade Yourself’, Computer Arts (August), Ingledew, J. (2011) The A-Z of Visual Ideas: How to Solve Any Creative Brief. United Kingdom: Laurence King Publishing Jo Wade Ltd (2015) Senior Designer / It’s Nice That Jobsboard. Available at: http://ifyoucouldjobs.com/jobs/view/ 8325 (Accessed: 22 April 2015) McCabe, S. (2014) 096: Boosting Creativity by Reducing Choice. Available at: http://seanwes.com/podcast/096-boostingcreativity-by-reducing-choice/ (Accessed: 14 April 2015) Moross, K. (2014) Make Your Own Luck: A DIY Attitude to Graphic Design and Illustration. Germany: Prestel Petty, D. (2014) ‘You’re a designer, architect, psychologist, sometimes CEO, and much more.’, Medium, 20 May. Shaughnessy, A. (2010) How to be a Graphic Designer, without Losing Your Soul. United Kingdom: Laurence King Publishing
Tariff, G. (2014) ‘Three things you learn as a young designer...’, Medium, 2 February. Available at: https:// medium.com/@gtariff/three-things-you-learn-as-a-young-designera018b3a4dc95 (Accessed: 14 April 2015) Wollenberg, A. (2015) ‘Make 2015 your best year ever!’, Computer Arts (January)
Bibliography
Alderson, R. (2015) ‘Bored, overworked but ethical – how do graphic designers see themselves?’, It’s Nice That, 21 April. Associates, C. D. and Mabry, M. (2006) Fingerprint: The Art of Using Hand-Made Elements in Graphic Design. United States: How Design Books Chase, M. (2013) Cloud Collaboration Coyier, C. (2013) A Modern Web Designer’s Workflow. Available at: https://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/124-amodern-web-designers-workflow/ (Accessed: 15 April 2015) Dabner, D., Stewart, S. and Zempol, E. (2014) Graphic Design School: A Foundation Course for Graphic Designers Working in Print, Moving Image and Digital Media. United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson Davies, J. and Brazell, D. (2013) Becoming a successful illustrator. london: Bloomsbury USA Academic Dennis, T. (2014) ‘Upgrade Yourself’, Computer Arts (August), Duckett, J. (2011) HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites. 1st edn. United States: John Wiley & Sons Fiell, C. (2005) Graphic design now. Edited by Charlotte Fiell and Peter Fiell. London: Taschen America Goldberg, J. (2015) WIP Personal Website Ingledew, J. (2011) The A-Z of Visual Ideas: How to Solve Any Creative Brief. United Kingdom: Laurence King Publishing Jo Wade Ltd (2015) Senior Designer / It’s Nice That Jobsboard. Available at: http://ifyoucouldjobs.com/jobs/view/ 8325 (Accessed: 22 April 2015) Klanten, R. and Bourquin, Die Gestalten Verlag
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