![]() We notice that independent graphic design is often short-lived, whereas integrated graphic design is more permanent, both varying according to time and place. At the other end of the scale there is an ephemeral graphic design, aiming at the short term.įrom the point of view of space, I also distinguish two major classes of graphic design: graphic design integrated with either a physical structure or an identity and independent graphic design. At one end of the scale, we find the graphic design that I call the graphic design of permanence, aiming at the medium and long term. The link between these two propositions gives us the social dimension of graphic design.įrom the point of view of time, one can classify communication on a scale. Second, communication happens in a concrete time frame. If we look at simplified representation of graphic communication, we see that it has transmitting subjects (clients and graphic designers), messages and objects (goals, ends, products), and receivers (audiences and consumers) with their needs and expectations. It is this diversity that provides the possibility for the development of graphic communication across the world in the future. Graphic design, on the other hand, continues to be created and to structure itself in an autonomous and diversified manner - in direct contact with the specific social fabrics of different societies around the world. Advertising is today more and more centralized, international, generalized and, therefore, standardized - like the economic forces that produce it, and the products it deals with. There is a difference between advertising and graphic design. And it also masks what is happening in the rest of the world.” Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society. The choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice. It is the expression of the pursuit of individual happiness, considered as a universal right.īerger goes on to say that “publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. He demonstrates that “glamour” is a modern invention in terms of images. Their basic critique has been developed by the Marxist critic John Berger in Ways of Seeing. They transcend frontiers and cultural divides. Visual productions in advertising are hugely sophisticated and articulated in relation to gigantic mass-media networks. Today, the production of visual communications consists essentially of advertising. We all live in society but not in the same one. ![]() It seems simple to declare such a principle, but given the contradictions of real life, the principle does not lead readily to practical rules of behaviour.Īny assessment of the social dimension of graphic design must always be made in a specific concrete situation, and this is a most difficult task. The graphic designer’s social responsibility is based on the wish to take part in the creation of a better world. ![]() “Life will always be hard enough to prevent men from losing the desire for something better,” Maxim Gorky said. I believe that the social function of the graphic designer is a subject to be approached through opinions and persuasion rather than through logic and knowledge. ![]() I believe that the single identity of the artist and the technician in the person of the graphic designer forms the basis for his capacity to assert his role strongly - and to take his own specific action as an individual who is a part of civilization. The division between the artist as creator and the artisan as technician has been born again out of the ashes of those founding principles. This division of labour amounts to a complete capitulation as regards the principles on which design is founded. It has thus been deemed legitimate to give arts and artists the function of entertainment and decoration, while techniques and technicians take care of efficient production. The humanist dream of a unification of our planet’s history in the capitalist logic of multinationals has in practice become a reductive standardization. Art is something to be visited in reservations, and spiritual harmony is to be found in other realms, religious or chemical. It is a world in which a materialised and human reality can develop.įor the rest - the majority - what is offered is exactly the opposite. For the minority, a world of calm has come into being in which design means authentic quality. Our Western society is working at two different speeds. Other people have been subjected to a major mass-media aesthetic - or for the most underprivileged - to its leftovers. Artists have for a long time been heading for ghettos, whether rich or poor.
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