Plan Your Career: Getting A Graphic Design Degree
Plan Your Career: Getting A Graphic Design Degree
Graphic design can be looked at as a creative procedure whose goal is to deliver a particular message to a specific audience. Web design refers to how content is brought to an end-user who is using a browser to look at websites on the Internet. Increasingly, art, graphic design and web design are becoming intertwined because web design is already viewed sometimes as graphic design. It is viewed this way because web design involves the manipulating of objects on the Internet’s information landscape, giving them aesthetic features that end-users will appreciate. The web uses art and graphic design to get ideas out to the mass media by creating advertisements that are eye-catching and command the attention of the media.
The Importance of Art
The importance of art in web graphic design cannot be underestimated. Many of the types of curriculum that students of graphic design will enroll in consists of courses on studio art. Furthermore, some design courses may also include course work that touches on subjects of art history in order to provide a broader background of ideas to graphic designers. Having a strong background in art empowers a web graphics designer to do his job effectively.
· Arts Education Master Plan: Details all the reasons that getting an education in art is important and useful in life.
· Importance of Art: Reflection on the importance of art to those who work in its medium.
Drawing Skills and Resources
Excellent drawing skills are not a necessity in trying to become a good graphic designer, but they help. There are conflicting schools of thought on the issue of drawing skills and graphic design work. Some argue that drawing skills are too old-fashioned and traditional, and that there are other areas like typography and computer knowledge that are more important to the graphic designer. Some employers and universities, however, do put a large emphasis on the old-fashioned requirement of drawing skills in evaluating designers.
· Learn How to Draw and Improve Your Drawing Skills: Website that teaches people on what to focus when drawing.
· Teaching Drawing Skills: Instructional web page that endeavors to teach people (children) how to learn to draw.
History of Graphic Design
Graphic design is quite a new concept if it is viewed as a discipline: The phrase “graphic design” was actually first coined in 1922. Going back further into history, it is quite evident that graphic design as a broader concept has been around since the time of early humankind. For example, Trajan’s Column of Ancient Rome is about two-thousand years old, and the cave paintings in France’s Lascaux are even older. After the advent of printing, Aldus Manutius founded western publication design, which eventually resulted in the graphic design era called Old Style. In the 19th-century United Kingdom, strides were being taken to separate graphic design from fine art, helping the discipline emerge as a distinct style. In the 20th century, graphic design exploded, in large part thanks to the American economy after World War II, which saw a demand for graphic design in packaging and advertising.
· An Introduction to the History of Graphic Design: Comprehensive website that covers all eras of graphic design to educate people about its history.
· P.R. Inc – Graphic design history: Extensive history of graphic design. To read additional entries, click “next page.”
· The History of Graphic Design and its Audiences: Written by a university professor, this history of graphics design is brief but educational.
Tips and Tricks of Successful Graphic Design
Graphic designers who employ certain useful tips and tricks in their endeavors meet with greater success in their line of work. The first and most important tip is to stay organized. Successful graphic design depends on creating a to-do list in order to prioritize the most important tasks for the day. Another trick of successful graphic design is to always complete assignments that have already been started. This practice creates a sense of discipline that empowers graphic designers not to get in over their heads by claiming too many projects they can’t then finish at the end.
· Graphic design, web design and online marketing tips: A huge selection of graphic design and web design tips that are meant for newcomers to the field.
· Graphic Design Tips and Articles: Long list of tips for graphic designers, ranging from tutorials on working with photos to stimulating creativity.
History of Web Design
The history of web design can be traced back to one man: Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist and engineer. In 1991, he was successful at publishing the very first website by combining hypertext and Internet communication. After that point in time, Internet markup language, which is a process of annotating text, was only available in basic HTML. As the years went by, this markup language become more complicated to the point where items like tables and objects could be added to web pages. More improvement to web design was also made by way of database integration technologies. At present, thousands of web design firms have been founded to take advantage of this ever-growing increase in the complexity and possibilities of the Internet.
· Short History of Web Design: Very succinct history of web design that covers all the basics with no frills.
· Web Design History: Easy-to-read primer on the history of web design. Includes graphs to illustrate key points.
· The History of Web Design: Provided by a professional web agency that distills the information in a pithy fashion.
Graphic Design Career
The term graphic designer surrounds many forms of careers in the space of graphic design work. A good many of these job descriptions related to the graphic design field overlap significantly. Some of the jobs that are classified as graphic designers are creative directors (boss of creative team that creates artwork); art directors (ensure that work is completed to a creative director’s satisfaction); art production managers (oversee the production side of art); brand identity developers (in charge of developing a company’s brand); logo designers (assigned to come up with innovative ways of communicating a company’s message through imagery); illustrators (create illustrations which symbolize a story or idea); visual image developers (develop images like 3D-modeling and photography); multimedia developers (work with interactivity, sound or motion); content developers; visual journalists (come up with information graphics); layout artists (concerned with the structure of images in a visually pleasing way); interface designers (graphical user interface layout artists); web designers (create layout, pages and graphics for web pages); and package designers. On the job outlook side, graphic designers are expected to get most of the jobs out of all the design occupations, but competition is fierce among graphic designers.
· Graphic Designers: Information about the nature of the work of graphic designers. Information comes from the US government.
· A day in the life of a Graphic Designer/Artist: Excessively detailed web page that discusses all the aspects of the graphic designer job. Written by a professional graphic designer.
Graphic and Web Design School
There is disagreement about the education necessary for a graphic and web design career. It is regarded that a formal education is not entirely required to really be successful in a graphic design career. At the same time, the degree of difficulty involved in trying to make a living in this field without a degree is high, but it is possible to still make a living without formal training. A bachelor’s degree is a necessity in most graphic design positions, yet some entry-level positions may only require an associate’s degree. The number of schools that provide degrees in bachelor’s of fine arts in graphic design is steadily increasing.
· ASU ART Graphic Design: Description of this type of bachelor’s degree and what it means for a career in graphic design.
· Portland State Art Graphic Design: Description of graphic design program that this university offers its students.
· Yale University School of Art: Graphic Design: Description of Yale University’s graphic design program and what it demands of students.
Creating A Great Portfolio
Picking the right pieces to go in your portfolio is the most important step in creating a great portfolio. You should limit yourself to no more than 10 pieces, but be sure to include at least six pieces. For graphic design firm applications, components should be limited to the basics of graphic design skill like business packages that include brochures, letterheads, and logos. The pieces of work should be displayed in their own sleeves in the portfolio. When showing pieces to a potential employer, begin with a decent piece, but not the best one, which should be saved for the midpoint part of the presentation.
· Graphic Design Portfolio: Excellent example of what a graphic design portfolio should look like and what it should contain.
· Just Creative Design (http://justcreativedesign.com/portfolio/): Another example of a graphic design portfolio from a young professional who has a bachelor’s degree in design.
