Graphic Design, A New History

Modern Day Graphic Design Issues, 2018

In order to comprehend the modern-day issues, it is essential to understand the historical insight of graphic design and furthermore acknowledge its significance. The changing ways of graphic design has affected a great amount of the procedures in the field of graphic design. It is a fact that design educators and graphic designers are worried about this discipline and where it is heading. In recent times, graphic design is at a fragile moment. The historical perspective has been changed and now the outlook for graphic designers is not good as there are some issues associated with it. According to Helfand "A core responsibility of the designer's job is to present information in a way that is both accessible and memorable" (Helfand 1).

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my wife, Marcelle Boudreaux, not least for her unwavering support and patience during my most grumpy moments, but also for her insightful feedback as this project progressed toward its natural conclusion.

Graphisme en France, 2024

Since the end of the twentieth century, graphic design has seen the emergence of a research activity that has developed in a variety of forms and contexts: in the teaching programmes of art schools and universities, in projects initiated by public and private institutions, and in the practice of graphic designers themselves, when combined with theoretical, historical and critical knowledge. Over the last thirty years, research has profoundly changed the landscape of graphic design in France, while at the same time helping to question its identity, its history and its relationship with many fields of humanities research (art history, media studies, semiotics and visual culture studies, etc.). This article looks back at this recent development and at the challenges facing graphic design research in the coming years.

This thesis uses Foucault’s notions of discourse and genealogy to explicate the emergence of graphic design in Victoria. As opposed to traditional histories which tend to portray graphic design as an unproblematic evolution from either ancient origins, or origins grounded in what has been called the industrial revolution, this enquiry sees graphic design as the confluence and selection of certain practices, and not others, some previously known as commercial art, and some not. It sees the emergence of graphic design as the gathering together of these practices within the discourse of design. In particular, it sees this gathering as a political exercise, where they are aligned with other design discourse components such as product or interior design. Using this methodology we have been able to explicate this emergence in terms of the workings of power through discourses—through the creation or reconstitution of objects like typography; languages like ‘modernist principles’; hierarchies as we find in design organisations which can confer or withhold credentials from certain practices and practitioners; and through educational institutions which formally legitimise these objects, languages, and hierarchies through histories and theories. This thesis has taken the approach that histories work to promote a certain way of understanding these practices such that their position within a particular discourse appears self-evident. It sees histories as always political. This thesis takes up Bourdieu’s perspective that the language of art is a language of exclusion which privileges certain social groups over others. I develop this concept to argue that design and graphic design are similarly implicated in the maintenance of social distinction. Thus the various historical emergences of design and graphic design are regarded in terms of how they work to shift power. The thesis excavates the meanings of terms such as ‘design’, ‘graphic design’ ‘commercial art’, and ‘graphic art’ in their historical specificity bringing to the surface the conditions and politics of their use. As opposed to seeing graphic design as a natural continuation of commercial art, I argue that graphic design emerged out of a complex set of relations between fine art discourse, design discourse, and the advertising industry, and that this emergence was made possible or necessary because of social shifts and changing work practices and technologies. The thesis argues that the ascendency of graphic design over commercial art is politically charged and relates directly to notions of social distinction. It also explicates the role of educational institutions in the emergence and consolidation of graphic design through legitimising histories and theories. A central theme of this thesis is that these shifts work to maintain notions of ‘legitimate’ creativity as the possession of a privileged few.

Acta Graphica Journal for Printing Science and Graphic Communications

To encompass the multitude of activities currently attached to graphic design, scholars, practitioners, and other stakeholders have proposed a range of names in recent times. Owing to the expansion of the role and multiple proposed and prevalent nomenclatures in education and industry, some confusion and identity crisis exists. This study investigates and traces the journey of graphic design, how its roles and functions have evolved with time, and the challenge of assigning a universally acceptable nomenclature encompassing all that graphic design stands for now. Data has been collected from both primary and secondary sources to get a sense of the situation. The secondary sources helped understand the breadth of the problem, views of scholars, practitioners, and the education world. Primary sources helped establish the inconsistencies of nomenclature in graphic design education, mirroring the situation of graphic design’s expanded functions in the profession. Primary information has...

Swiss Graphic Design Histories – Tempting Terms, 2021

Authored by Roland Früh, Ueli Kaufmann, Peter J. Schneemann, and Sara Zeller

2005

Introduction: Traditional graphic design forms could (and even should) be practised by individuals depending on their relative skill, expertise and inclination. Recent development of traditional design as well as new media has expanded to new divisions, unprecedented collaborations and specializations in news intermediate fields. Currently a graphic designer connects various media into one multimedia form. Design and related disciplines as architecture, environmental design, programming production and other technical support staff are moving and changing their meaning.

Tradition, transition, trajectories: major or minor influences? [= Proceedings of the 9th International Committee for Design History and Design Studies], 2014

The expression ‘memória gráfica’ (literally, ‘graphic memory’) has been used in Portuguese and Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, more and more frequently, in the last years, in order to refer to a line of studies that intends to review the significance and value of visual artifacts, and in particular of printed ephemera, in the establishment of a sense of local identity through design. This paper intends to review the contexts in which this expression has been used within the field of research on visual artifacts in Latin America, and to discuss the relationships between the concept of ‘graphic memory’ and those of ‘print culture,’ ‘visual culture,’ and ‘material culture,’ setting up a proposal of how it can be applied as an approach to the history of graphic design in non-hegemonic countries.