Defining Graphic Design

What are some of the defining characteristics of graphic design? There's a lot more to design than the creative process. Let's begin by exploring its role in the world of business.

The Design Process

Message to all art school types: Graphic design is rarely created in a vacuum or through bursts of random creativity. Most graphic design jobs begin with a commercial objective established through a time-tested process.

A design firm or agency is typically hired by a client to create something: a logo, for example, or a CD cover, a magazine layout, or a Web site. Designers and project managers meet with the client and work collaboratively to define the purpose of the project: What is its message? Who is its target audience? The initial meeting generates a document that provides the client and design team with a written statement of the project's goals, often called a project brief or design brief.

Figure 1.3. Visual identity developed for Bond Bath and Home Gallery, a Soho-based home furniture and accessory emporium. Designer Patricio Sarzosa was asked to create a visual identity that conveyed a luxury retail brand that was friendly and accessible.

The project brief may contain abstract goals or statements that may not even be remotely visual. If you're hired to redesign the Coke can, for example, your objectives may include increasing a perception of quality, making the product seem to taste better, or attracting a specific group of consumers. The brief will also include all-important information on the project's budget, deadlines, and production requirements.

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The project brief is a formal document that is used as a benchmarking tool and often updated as a project unfolds.

The design team uses the project brief as a guide through the creative phase. Depending on the size and requirements of the project, a team of creativesdesigners, illustrators, photographers, copywritersmay be assembled to brainstorm ideas and develop a range of solutions for presentation to the client. In smaller agencies, a single designer may be asked to handle multiple facets of the creative task.

As a project evolves over weeks and months, critique of the work within the design agency and multiple rounds of feedback from the client will refine and polish the message. No designer ever gets it right the first time. Client meetings help make sure that the client (the design customer) is satisfied with the art direction and that the work is addressing his or her business needs.

Figure 1.4. Logo, colors, and icons were applied consistently to business collateral and the store frontage.

Once every detail in the project is finalizeda decision that rests with the clientthe design team is generally responsible for managing the printing and production of the work. This may involve working with the printer to finalize all specifications of the job, preparing digital files for printing, and monitoring print quality. A working knowledge of production techniques and a good relationship with a printer is important to getting the best results.

The Visual Message

Hang around designers long enough, and you'll get to hear the phrase "less is more," often accompanied by sage nodding of heads. That is because economy of expression is an essential characteristic of graphic design. Design must convey a visual message with minimum fuss and maximum clarity.

Consider the job of the outdoor ad designer. Her work must attract attention, be understood quicklyoften literally at a glanceand communicate without any risk of ambiguity. This can be achieved only if every element of the design is harnessed to support the message, and all unnecessary, potentially distracting elements are removed.

Figure 1.5. This anti-war poster created by master designer Marty Neumeier conveys a complex idea through a deceptively simple visual message. Pure graphic design!

Nothing in a design is arbitrary nor should it be. From image treatment to color swatches to paper texture, every element in a well-executed design has a motive. A shrewd designer is continually asking himself how the various elements and techniques at his disposal, such as color, cropping, contrastin fact, anythingcan be better used in service of the message.

Designers spend an inordinate amount of time stripping out extraneous details and simplifying a design. Why does nearly every product photo in advertising have a white background? It's because any background detail would distract attention from the product, where the attention belongs. Why do designers mutter the words "busy layout" or "text heavy" with such disdain? Because they understand that removing clutter adds clarity.

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"Less is more" is a principle that all graphic designers learn to embrace, sooner or later. Simplicity and clarity are essential in any visual communication.

A great design looks effortless, like it was just meant to be that way. But as with many things in life, achieving simplicity in your graphic design work is harder than it looks, and sometimes requires years of experience. Almost any piece of content can be too much informationthe amount of text, the number of colors, the freckles on the model's nose. If it doesn't contribute to your message, consider editing it out.

Supporting the Brand

Here's a reality check: Even if you're a freelance designer, you're rarely working for yourself. Let's hope not, anyway. The vast majority of design jobs are commercial in nature; a designer is hired by a company or organization to produce items that will enhance its marketing, advertising, publishing, or promotional efforts. To put it another way, one major function of design is to support a brand.

When you work with clients as a designer, you are not working with a blank slate. Quite the opposite: The more important the job, the more likely you'll need to work creatively within constraints. You may be hired for your unmistakable artistic style, but ultimately you're working for the client, and your design work needs to support his brand, not yours.

Figure 1.6. Most design projects begin with a specific audience in mind. Magazine designers, for example, cater to the interests of well-established groups of readers.

Every large company has a visual identity system: a set of standards that dictate exactly how its logo, colors, and typography will appear in all its communications to customers. To build a brand, consistency in these elements is vital. Repeated exposure to a consistent message makes customers more and more familiar with a brand, because a brand that is easy to recognize is easy to remember. For companies that also deliver excellent products and services, repetition of a message leads to that magic phenomenon called brand recognition.

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Repetition doesn't always mean boredom for designers: Consistency in design is essential to creating product lines and establishing brand recognition.

That brings us to the dilemma every designer faces: Be a genius, but do it in our house style. Packaging designers grapple with this constantly. Imagine you are hired to design a brand extension for a shampoo line. You may need to use that company's logo, signature colors, and carton dimensions to create a design that dovetails nicely with other company product packages on the store shelf. At the same time, however, you'll need to create some original, distinctive graphic feature that attracts shoppers' attention and says "This is new".

Figure 1.7. A range of product packages developed for Maxwell's Apothecary. Consistency in typography and graphic elements makes each package part of the product line.

That's branding, and designers play a huge role in making it happen. Brands are always evolving, as companies perpetually redefine their values, refresh tired products, and reach out to new audiences. If you want to connect to the next generation, you've got to have designers on board.

Communicating to an Audience

Are you talking to me? You'd better be if you're a designer; it's your job to communicate. A skilled designer knows how to create messages that are understood by everyone but also appeal very directly to a specific target audience.

The concept of designing for a target audience is a product of scientific marketing methods that emerged in the 1960s. Recognizing that they could profit by marketing directly to specific segments of the populationas opposed to the mass marketcompanies began to classify customers into groups based on geographic location, gender, age, income, and so on, and advertise accordingly.

Figure 1.8. The Wick's Fowler Chili ad series packs a punchand speaks to a very specific audience.

Today, a design firm hired for a project is often supplied with a marketing brief on the company's target customers. Good designers zero in on this information and do their own research to get familiar with the customers' tastes: What brands do they buy? What fashions do they wear? What are their lifestyles? Understanding the customers helps you find a visual language to reach them.

Of course, many companies want their message to reach everyone, not just the nice folks who are currently their customers. And so designers also look for ways to make a niche message understandable to the general public. A designer must be a scholar of how people read, how they consume images, and what they respond to.

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Create a mood board for every design project. Do some research and gather some design pieces that will give you a sense of how to address the unique tastes of your target audience.

One key consideration is the context in which the message will appear. Where will people see it? What will they be doing at the time? What other messages will appear alongside yours? A magazine cover needs to pop out on a crowded newsstand. An ad inside it needs to catch the attention of a reader casually flipping through. A billboard for the magazine may be viewed at a distance of hundreds of yards, by drivers idling at an intersection or flying past in a hurry.