Discussion: What is graphic design? Why is it important?

Graphic Design is the art of visual presentation and communication using graphical elements. There are a lot of different types of graphic designs, including: advertisements, magazines, and of course web design. Graphic design officially began and was used in the late 20th century and advanced into the early 21st century, however if you actually think about it, it began way back in history during the age of the cavemen.
Technology is the application and the process that helps human beings modify nature to meet their needs and wants. In simpler words, technology is a creation from science and engineering. Design and technology definitely have a very significant relationship. Looking at innovations, both technology and design are needed to produce an innovation. In the past century (mostly in the last two decades), both technology and design have been combined to generate brilliant foundations like all of the new electronic devices (IPods, phones, laptops, cameras, etc.) Even though design and technology can be seen as the same thing, they have to different definitions and often get mistaken with one another.
Whenever I see or hear the word design, I think about art, pattern, color and all the elements of fine art. But, when referring to digital design or graphic design, the word has a new meaning. Graphic design, in my opinion, is actually quite an interesting topic and shows us what we can do with the availability of technology and innovations.

	Research method	Design process
Preparation for research	Literature review	Study historic and contemporary examples, media
Information gathering. Goal: to limit variables and identify problem	Collection of preliminary field data	Experimentation with materials and visual ideas
Identification of problem and hypothesis	Information correlated; problem defined; educated guesses made; hypotheses stated; research design prepared	Design problem identified through visual analysis and recognition
Exposition of facts and interpretation	Research plan is carried out; results are analyzed, plan is modified as necessary based on results; experiments are replicated	Work is created in a series, with each work suggesting problems to explore in subsequent work
Presentation of results and findings	Publication of findings	Exhibition of work or production of design

What is Graphic Design?

The ability to experiment, to value and to learn from mistakes and build on the experience achieved is the hallmark of a successful and creative individual. 

Creativity is often mistaken with originality because there are very few original ideas. Creativity is actually the ability to see connections and relationships where others have not. 

Design Process: 1. collect ideas and skills through reading or experimentation. 

     2. Formulate a tentative problem, and begin to explore the topic. 

The Design Cycle 

This cycle is very useful since it shows all the processes and steps you have to take when you are designing something. It guides you through all of the work. Planning, Investigating, Creating and Evaluating are the four main steps of the cycle. Then each section is divided into two sub sections which defines each step. If you actually think about it, you can start from anywhere and end from anywhere because you will definitely have to come across each step when you are designing. 

Design Videos 

1st Video

Graphic design can sometimes be too revolutionary. 

Designs need a lot of drafts and planning to make it the best. However, the final design is not perfect and will always need more improvements. 

Diagrams do not have to be exact.

The London Underground diagram was easy to use. No one ever changed it because it was a success. 

Form follows function. 

The design is timeless. 

2nd Video

Revolution in technology of materials for new shapes. 

New designs were created. This revolution took place during the Post war in the 1950's. 

These new designs were exciting and surprised people because of its revolutionary designs and its use of material. 

Modern design is identified with an independent spirit, liberation and playfulness.

Well designed goods should be available to all. 

Interesting and influential designs include organic and human related designs. 

Pre-course Survey

I have had quite a few big design projects in the past. For example, last year I had to create a movie with some of my classmates in German class . This was a very successful project and I believe that I spent the most time and had the most fun working on the design section instead of concentrating on the German vocabulary or grammar. Planning was definitely the toughest step of our project because it took a lot of time and a lot of thinking. Our movie did not need any researching or evaluating, but our second toughest step was editing. However, it took less time and you dont have to do a lot of thinking to edit. I simply had to adjust the movie to make it perfect.
Another example of a big design project was my Grade 9 English Culminating Project. This projects was informative. Therefore the teacher cared a lot about the content and also the presentation. However, we also had to focus on the organisation. This was quite a tough project, but I had three other classmates working with me. We all had different roles, for example I had to research, the other classmate had to find pictures and charts and the other one was responsible for the organisation of the poster. After we were finished with our rough draft of the project, we each had a turn to edit the poster. I decided not to have a lot of bright and contrasting colours. Therefore I changed the colours and I also decided to make the title bigger and change the position of it. Another classmate decided to check the spelling and grammar of the information and also check if the information is all correct. Another classmate added the Works Cited and added the source underneath all the visuals. In this case, editing was probably the hardest job and I think that this project was more important and valuable than the German movie.


Digital Design was very eye-catching when I saw it as an option for a school elective. I was also very surprised when my teacher told me that we were going to have a new Mac Lab in the new school. So, I thought for a while and then decided to select this subject for this year. I thought as much that this subject was going to involve a lot of technology and computer. This course also seems vey useful for me because I can learn how to design websites, blogs, and other digital features. In general, Digital Design sounds like a whole lot of fun.