Graphic design
Combines image, typography and composition to communicate a message to a specific audience with a specific goal: to inform, persuade or identify.
What it deals with
A message can get lost even when it is correct: if it is not seen, understood or remembered, it does not get through.
Principles
For someone
You design with the receiver of the message in mind, and how they interpret it.
Hierarchy
What matters is seen first.
Form and content
Form has to serve the message, not compete with it.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Decide what the viewer has to see first, and design for that.
Avoid
Choosing a style before knowing what needs to be communicated.
Don’t fall for it
Test the piece with the real audience: what the team understands is not always what people understand.
Especialidades
Art direction
Defines and looks after a project’s visual style and coordinates the people who produce it.
Models
- ModelGrid systemAn invisible structure of columns and margins that organizes everything on a page or a screen.
Methods and tools
- MethodMood boardA board of images, colors and textures that sets the tone of a project before designing it.
Connections
Builds on
Authors and works
- 1983
Philip B. Meggs
Wrote a complete history of graphic design as a discipline in its own right, now a standard reference.
- 2004
Jorge Frascara
Argued for communication design as a process centered on how people interpret messages, not just on style.
Sources
Original sources
- Frascara, J. (2004). Communication design: Principles, methods, and practice. Allworth Press.
Secondary sources
- Meggs, P. B. (1983). A history of graphic design. Van Nostrand Reinhold.
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