Let’s look forward. After all, that’s something I was taught by my mentor, Tibor Kalman, back when I didn’t call myself a graphic designer—a title I still struggle with even after almost 20 years of having earned a living being one.
In fact, I suspect that many people would argue that in order to define what graphic design is, we have to look forward. Graphic designers are subjugated to the tools we’re given and the technology available. We were sign painters, book printers, newspaper typesetters, advertising layout artists, television keyboard operators, print designers, art directors, web designers…and now…interactive designers! User experience designers! Social network experiential designers (okay, I might have made that one up)!
Wtf??? Can you think of any other professional, white-collar jobs, which have had that many different titles?
So what’s the glue that holds all these different titles together as “graphic design”?
I think the glue is “us”—yup, us graphic designers. We need a way to answer the question, “so, what do you do?” and we’re a bit of an insecure group that likes—okay, needs—a support network. It used to be the “AIGA”. Now, have you seen how many graphic designers there are on Twitter?
Our clients don’t care what we call ourselves; they care about what we can do. Can we design and produce a brochure? A poster? A TV spot? A website? A widget? (Please don’t make me produce a widget—I’ll start having econ 101 nightmares all over again.)
And that’s what makes being a “graphic designer” so incredibly wonderful. We’re getting paid to think, to create, to develop solutions! It’s not about the negative “what ifs”, it about the positive “what ifs”. It’s about using all of our life experiences, stapling them to our mental Rolodex, and then spinning the dial to help someone communicate an idea—using whatever tool or technology is best.
What is graphic design? It’s the title on a business card—the rest is up to you.
[Special thanks to Joey Pfeifer for starting this conversation, which I think he’ll be continuing on http://definegraphicdesign.com/contribute]
