What is graphic design…and where is it headed?

In non-geek speak, graphic design is used to assist businesses in developing communications tools to represent them. Telling the crowds we are engineers or artists is a little misleading, we are in the business of communicating business. User-interface is becoming more commonly user-friendly and communications are being unified to send consistent messages to the consumer. Graphic designers make messages easier to digest and unify business messages.

The future of graphic design has changed at an abnormal rate due to the internet. We were once all about paper and print. This is no longer the case. What’s next for graphic design is what builds brands better. This however is answering what’s next in terms of design and business, not just the realm of graphic design, however many of the answers collide. So then what is actually next for graphic design?

Today the most successful computing company is driving this. Apple. They’re heavily involved with restricting a consumer to preserve functionality and their modern design aesthetics seem to tell the consumer that this is better. Our society demands the consumer know so much that it is becoming more important to say your message clearly, or it might as well be not said at all. Of course the future of our graphic design aesthetics are heavily influenced by the technological innovations of the printer, we have already discovered the ‘Swiss grid’, a mathematical model for layout and our own design sense for creating layouts, what’s next depends on what happens within the realm of the paper merchants, printers and digital media.

The shift towards digital media means that greater demand for user-interface design will be created, it is natural for the Graphic and Industrial Designers to shift into this field, as our knowledge in user centred aesthetics are a perfect fit.

When an actor sits down to write a book, we don’t call what they’re doing acting, we call it writing. Graphic designers today need to bear this in mind and remember that our role is to co-operate with business and unify their creations, on top of this we can adapt to new technologies and design within, but what is essential to graphic design is the unification of business and communicating this.