Graphic design is the art or profession of visual communication that combines images, words, and ideas to convey information to an audience, especially to produce a specific effect. In other words, graphic design is communication design; It’s a way of conveying ideas through visuals and design.
But believe it or not, graphic design isn’t a black and white concept. To fully grasp the concept of graphic design, it’s important to have a solid understanding of the elements and principles that make up design.
Elements of art are the basic units of any visual design that form the design’s structure and convey its visual messages. The elements of graphic design are:
Line: The most basic of the design elements. Lines can be curved, straight, thick, thin, two-dimensional, three-dimensional – whatever really! A line is simply an element of design that is defined by a point moving in space.
Shape: A shape is a two-dimensional defined area created by lines. Different types of shapes include geometric, abstract, and organic shapes, all of which are basic elements of design.
Colour: Colour is one element that is especially important in attracting attention because there is psychology behind the feelings that colour can evoke. There are three main characteristics to colour: hue (the colour family), value (how light or dark the colour is), and saturation (the purity of the colour).
Typography: Typography is the art of arranging type. This one is critically important as it can greatly affect the design’s messaging. Different weights (bold, regular, or light), combined with varied sizing, colours, and spacing, can add power to the concept the designer is trying to communicate.
Texture: Texture in design refers to how things look like they’d feel if they were to be touched. For example, texture can be rough, smooth, glossy, soft, hard, etc. Texture is another element used to draw attention. It can be added to other elements like shapes, colours, images, and type.
Size: Size is simply how small or large something is. In design, size is used as an indication of importance, and it can also create visual interest in a design by using contrasting sizes.
Space: Space refers to the areas of the design that are left blank. These areas include any distance or areas between, around, below, or above other design elements. Designers intentionally place spaces in the design to add emphasis to areas of the design.
Visual Identity Graphics
Visual identity is all of the imagery and graphical information that expresses who a brand is and differentiates it from all the others. In other words, it describes everything customers can physically see, from the logo to the interior design of a store.
Often, visual identity culminates in the development of a brand style guide which provides consistent instructions on how the brand should be visually represented at all times and in any situation.
The purpose of visual identity is:
To create an emotional impression on viewers
To inform viewers about the nature of the brand and services/products offered
To unify the many different aspects of a business through consistent visuals.
1. Logos: Logos serve to represent a given organization or company through a visual image that can be easily understood and recognized. A logo generally involves symbols, stylized text or both. Logos are often created by a graphic artist in consultation with a company and marketing experts.
Three categories of logos exist and are often used in combination. These three categories are:
Ideographs - freeform images that can be entirely abstract.
Pictographs - symbolic, representational images.
Logotypes - simple, textual representations, like a company’s initials.
2. Palette: A colour palette, in the digital world, refers to the full range of colour that can be displayed on a device screen or other interface, or in some cases, a collection of colour and tools for use in paint and illustration programs. The colour palette reveals a lot about the electronic design of the device or technology, and its visual capabilities for human users. A colour palette is also known simply as a palette.
3. Image Libraries: Image Libraries describes photography and video content as well as any spokespeople who act as the living “image” of the brand in advertisements. When it comes to visual identity, designers must curate only those images that are the most representative of the brand’s personality and, most importantly, its customers.
4. Business Card: The business card represents your company’s brand. Not only does it convey important personal contact information such as name, title, email, website, address and phone number, but oftentimes it is also the first exposure to the overall image of the business. The company logo is prominently displayed for brand identity. The fonts used, colour, texture and paper stock used also conveys a message about the type of industry represented. Specialized printing techniques can be used such as embossing, foil stamping, thermography or laminating. The business card reflects the personality of the company and gives the first impression.
5. Corporate Stationaries: Business stationery says a lot about a company's professionalism and legitimacy. It plays an important role in attracting and helping maintain clients. It can also be used to help promote your brand and attract new clients, but these are not the only benefits it has for your business. Corporate stationery is not just your official letterhead. It includes all printed documents that bear your business name, logo, slogan, and other details. Every bit of paper used for communicating with associates and customers is considered business stationery.
Marketing and Advertising Graphics
Marketing graphic design is all about communicating and promoting a brand's products or services in a visually appealing way. Not only that, but all the materials created need to adhere to the company's visual identity.
Advertising design is the intersection of marketing and design. It refers to the visual artwork created specifically for advertisements. Ad design, which is usually used synonymously with graphic design advertising, differs in the fact that its sole purpose is to sell products and services.
1. Postcard and Flyers: They're a diverse marketing tool. They can be used as flyers, newsletters or product brochures. A discount offer can be printed on them, allowing the postcard to be used as a coupon. They are sometimes described as an oversized business card and are another way to help brand a business.
2. Magazine and Newspaper Ads: Print advertising is a widely used form of advertising. These advertisements appear in newspapers or magazines and are sometimes included as brochures or fliers. Anything written in the print media to grab the attention of the specific target audience comes under the purview of print advertising.
3. Posters, Banners and Bill Boards: Posters are one of the most cost-effective forms of advertising on the market. Posters allow you to spread your message to a wide audience far cheaper than radio, print or television advertising in a simple, easy and affordable way. A billboard is used to advertise a product or service, whereas as a poster presents more educational and information material. It may be used to teach something. A billboard conveys a simple message using a few images and a limited amount of text. In comparison, a poster tends to be much more detailed.
4. Infographics: Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly. They can improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system's ability to see patterns and trends.
An infographic example is a visual representation of information. Infographics examples include a variety of elements, such as images, icons, text, charts, and diagrams to convey messages at a glance.
5. Brochures: In a brochure, a reader will see the pictures first, and then the headlines, charts and graphs, captions, before finally moving to body text. Therefore, a brochure must be so prepared that a reader can have an idea of the content by just having a look at the pictures and the headlines.
6. Vehicle Wraps: A car wrap is a large vinyl graphic or decal. It is applied directly (to all or some of) the painted surfaces of your vehicle. It can change the colour and entire look of your vehicles quickly, making way for vibrant, unique, and noticeable branding.
7. Signage and Trade-show Display: A trade show display is a highly visible statement about a company and its products,” said Laurie Pennacchi, vice president of sales at ExpoMarketing, a trade show display company. “The company benefits from having a display by attracting visitors at shows that generate leads.
Publication Graphics
Publication design is a wide and diverse area, covering everything from magazines, newspapers, and books to annual reports, brochures, product catalogues, newsletters, and journals.
1. Book Design: Book design is the art of arranging text, content, formatting, and visual assets into a single cohesive product that elevates a manuscript, paper stock, and its cover design into more than the sum of its parts.
2. Newspapers Design: News design is the process of arranging material on a newspaper page, according to editorial and graphical guidelines and goals.
3. Newsletters Design: It's a way to engage people and get them to take an action. It offers readers exclusive information they could not get anywhere else and then calls on them to click, buy or subscribe. To do that, your newsletter format should be simple and easy to read.
4. Annual Report Design: A great annual report is the perfect blend of stunning design, engaging content, and important information. It combines copywriting, imagery, high-end production, and photography into something that makes your business shine, year after year.
5. Magazine Design: Magazine layout is about creating a harmonious relationship between text, images, and white space. A magazine designer is a creative professional who handles a magazine's visual layout. They use a variety of artwork, like photos and graphics, to create the design for magazine pages and covers.
6. Catalog Design: A catalog is a visual design product that shows potential clients your products or services. It should be produced to the highest standards and detail your whole line of products or services you offer to your consumers.
Packaging Graphics
Packaging design is a quite specific field in the graphic design industry. Your 2D designs are taken a step closer to 3D, and it's the closest you could get to product design while still doing graphic design. Product packaging design refers to the creation of the exterior of a product. That includes choices in material and form as well as graphics, colours and fonts that are used on wrapping, a box, a can, a bottle, or any kind of container.
1. Label Design: A label design is a visual to deliver a product's details uniquely. While an ordinary looking label gives legal information about the product such as its date of manufacturing and ingredients used, a uniquely created label is an engaging design. A nicely designed product label can help draw the attention of potential customers. But more than that a strategically created label makes a brand statement. Such a label contributes to a company's efforts in building a trustworthy brand identity. Your product may be highly useful to your customers.
Environmental Graphics
Environmental graphic design, or EGD, is a multidisciplinary field of design in which the disciplines of graphic design, architecture, art, lighting, landscape, and other fields are utilized as a way to enhance the user experience through the visual translation of ideas in the built environment.
Effective environmental graphics combine form and function to transform spaces into something unique and memorable. They are a cost-effective marketing tool that enhances brand perception and provides valuable information to employees and customers.
1. Signage: Signage is generally defined as any kind of graphic display intended to convey information to an audience. Signage design is the art of combining visual graphics with a message to market or advertise a business or information to customers and potential clients. Popular signage includes billboards, posters, banners, social media ads, and more.
2. Wall Mural: A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Murals can serve many purposes. Traditionally murals were intended primarily to beautify public or private spaces. However, murals have also become a medium for political or social commentary over time. Murals can also be used to memorialize or record a historical event.
3. Museum Exhibition: An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition hall, or World's fairs.
4. Office Branding: it's the art of shaping an office space into one that reflects your company. It doesn't just have to be a case of painting the office in company colours and sticking your logo up about the place This includes everything from conventional workstations, standing desks and office pods, to chairs, conference room tables and brainstorm rooms.
5. Public Transportation Navigation: Public transport maps are typically designed in a way to support route finding tasks for passengers, while they also provide an overview about stations, metro lines, and city-specific attractions. Most of those maps are designed as a static representation, maybe placed in a metro station or printed in a travel guide.
6. Retail Store Interior: Retail design is primarily a specialized practice of architecture and interior design; however, it also incorporates elements of industrial design, graphic design, ergonomics, and advertising. Retail design is a very specialized discipline due to the heavy demands placed on retail space.
7. Stadium Branding: Stadium branding is a necessity at any facility whether it is brand new or an older facility needing a fresh new look. Stadium signs need to have an impressive impact right from the start. A stand-out and centrepiece of stadium branding are stadium wraps.
Art & Illustration
Graphic design is the art and profession of using visual compositions to solve problems and communicate ideas through typography, imagery, colour and form. While illustration focuses on creative interpretation, graphic design is all about communication with its target audience.
Art is how an artist works to bring an idea they had or were inspired to have, to life through their work. Illustrations are also based on ideas but look to explain these ideas and serve as a depiction of them, rather than showing them from the artist's perspective.
1. T-Shirt Design: T-shirt design is a hugely popular outlet for creatives. Whether you're an illustrator, graphic designer or typographer, putting your designs onto T-shirts can be fun, and a great way to sell your designs online)
2. Graphic Patterns for Textiles: Textile Graphics is a computer-aided technique for developing a textile design and textile patterning mechanism information from an artist's drawing. The computer is operated by a textile designer-technician who understands the particular textile machinery for which he is adapting the original drawing.
3. Stock Images: Stock images are generic photos, illustrations and icons created without a particular project in mind. They are then licensed, usually for a fee, to individuals or organizations for use in marketing materials, websites, packaging, book covers and more.
4. Graphic Novels: With graphic novels, students use text and images to make inferences and synthesize information, both of which are abstract and challenging skills for readers. Images, just like text, can be interpreted in many different ways, and can bring nuances to the meaning of the story.
5. Comic Books: A comic book is a bound collection of strips, each of which typically tells a single story or a gag (joke) in a few panels or else a segment of a continuous story. Most of the more popular newspaper comic strips eventually are collected over a varying period of time and published in book form.
6. Album Art: Album cover or Album Art design is a visual representation of your music and the first image your listeners will see when they pick up your album. It should artistically represent your style and tone as a musician.
7. Book Covers: A book cover creates the first impression on its potential readers. Therefore, a book cover design is one of the most important aspects of marketing a book. If the cover is not designed well, you will lose sales. So, one must consider a professional book cover designer for creating a book cover.
8. Picture Books: A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images.
9. Technical Illustration: Technical illustration is a field that involves creating drawings that represent complex, specialized concepts. Technical illustrations can represent either physical objects or concepts using symbols and labels.
10. Concept Art: Concept art is a form of visual art used to convey an idea for use in films, video games, animation, comic books, or other media before it is put into the final product.
CreatoMax "Animation & Designing Studio"
Comentarii