Graphic designs Graphic design is the applied art of arranging image and text to communicate a message. It may be applied in any media, such as print, digital media, motion pictures, animation, product decoration, packaging, and signs. Graphic design as a practice can be traced back to the origin of the written word, but only in the late 19th century did it become identified as a separate entity.
Fundamental principles of design are alignment, balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, proportion, proximity, repetition, rhythm, unity, and white space
Modern Graphic Design of the early 20th century, much like the fine art of the same period, was a reaction against the decadence of typography and design of the late 19th century. The hallmark of early modern typography is the sans-serif typeface. Early Modern (not to be confused with the other modern era of the 18th and 19th centuries) typographers such as Edward Johnston and Eric Gill after him were inspired by vernacular and industrial typography of the latter nineteenth century. The signage in the London Underground is a classic of this era and used a font designed by Edward Johnston in 1916.
Jan Tschichold codified the principles of modern typography in his 1928 book, New Typography. He later repudiated the philosophy he espoused in this book as being fascistic, but it remained very influential. Tschichold, Bauhaus typographers such as Herbert Bayer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky are the fathers of graphic design as we know it today. They pioneered production techniques and stylistic devices used throughout the twentieth century. Today, the computer has altered production forever, but the experimental approach to design they pioneered is more relevant than ever -- the dynamism, the experimentation, and even very specific things like typeface choice (Helvetica has seen a recent revival, it was an early design based indirectly on 19th century industrial typography) and strict, orthogonal composition.
The following years saw graphic design in the modern style gain widespread acceptance and application, while it simultaneously stagnated. Notable names in mid-century modern design are Adrian Frutiger, designer of the typefaces Univers and Frutiger; and Josef Müller-Brockmann, who designed posters in a severe yet accessible manner typical of the 1950s and 1960s.
The reaction to the increasing severity of graphic design was slow but inexorable. The origins of post-modern typography can be traced back as far as the humanist movement of the 1950s. Notable among this group is Hermann Zapf who designed two typefaces which remain ubiquitous -- Palatino (1948) and Optima (1952). By blurring the line between serif and sans-serif typefaces and re-introducing organic lines into typography these designs did more to ratify modernism than they did to rebel.
An important point was reached in graphic design with the publishing of the First things first 1964 Manifesto which was a call to a more radical form of graphic design and criticised the ideas of value-free design. This was massively influential on a generation of new graphic designers and contributed to the founding of publications such as Emigre magazine.
Although they were very limiting at first, as computing power increased and software such as Adobe Photoshop emerged, it was evident exactly what kind of creative freedom and power that computers could provide. Image creation and manipulation using a computer demonstrated possibilities that had previously been unachievable. Another enormous development that computers provided to designers was the ability for them to set their own type, instantly seeing how it affected their design or layout, which allowed for new and more radical use of typography. Computers quickly grew to become an essential tool used in the graphic design industry.
Computer Graphic programs Modern graphic design has evolved into a profession that is done almost entirely on computers. Common tools include Apple Macintosh computers, sketch pads, Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and PageMaker (now considered obsolete, but used by many U.S. high schools), QuarkXPress, Macromedia Freehand and Fireworks, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Graphics Suite, and many other software programs.
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