While researching counter points about why people think design work is easy, I found some things that where interesting. The reasons people thing that design work is easy are they associate design as rebellious, they think anyone can do it by learning the software, and they think we do not work as hard as other fields. Associating graphic design as rebellious isn’t something new. It come from the stigma that all art majors chose an art to be “rebellious” and “free spirited.” We chose to do art, so we would want to be doctors for lawyers, apparently. The other reason is that people think with a book and a couple of video tutorials, then you can be classified as a graphic designer. They think that a graphic designer is using readily available tools, such as photoshop, illustrator, and indesign, then they could do it too, without schooling. This comes from our association as artist. Art isn’t something that is a talent, it can be taught, so we are roped into the idea that with enough time and practice, I can be a painter or a drawer. The last reason is about our skill. Because we’ve got through many years of practicing and understanding graphic design principles, then we are able to do work rather fast, well the more experienced of us. So, people associate quickness with laziness. A lot of people see the end product and think,” Aww, well that looks easy and simple. That looks like it took them no time at all. They must have done that in an hour.” Even if it took the graphic designer an hour or so, it doesn’t mean that much thought didn’t go into it. It took that graphic designer years of work to be able to make this logo is an hour.   

Growth in any sense is very difficult. A flower must grow in the right soil, watered the right amount, experience the right amount of sunlight, be in the right temperature, and only then, it will bloom, however, this strategy doesn’t work for every flower. You cannot grow an orchid in a field of sunflowers, so what do you do? You replace the orchid with another sunflower. You don’t cater to the single flower. You get rid of the single flower, so it can look like everybody else. This is relative to design today. We take logos using older, more stylized typefaces and change it to generic sans serifs. We take original logos with gradients and drop-shadows, and turn them into outlines and silhouettes. We take the individuality and uniqueness out of each bouquet and replace every orchid, rose, and daisy with sunflowers. In this field of sunflowers, how could a designer grow? 

I’m not saying becoming more uniform is inherently bad. Designers learn from other designers, so if your favorite designer loves using sans serifs in all of his/her designs, then you’ll start mimicking that same process. You’ll incorporate something you learned from a professional into your own work and that’s okay. That is how you grow, but what is not okay is changing your work to look like everyone else. We can’t inform others that you need to give up your individuality and unique style to adhere to the standard. We need to inform others, especially young inspiring designers, that you should learn from other, not copy them.

Growing as a new designer is no easy task. You must go through many years of schooling, countless internships, and deal with the continuation of over saturation of the same thing, but when you overcome these challenges, only then you will grow. 

I found Chapter 3 of Baldwin and Roberts’ book Visual Communication: From Theory to Practice interesting because this chapter discusses arguments put forward by theorists such as Victor Papanek, the rejection of many of the concepts and ideologies that might enable a more ethical design culture, the pressures that were being put on students to bow to, rather than resist, commercial forces, and the relationship between the design industry and the public. The chapter starts off with Victor Papanek and his ideals of Western design. He identified a tendency in Western cultures to produce products that are potentially harmful, extravagant, or just plain useless, which I agree with 100 percent. He goes into details about example of us doing this. He finishes off the chapter explaining his idea of what designers are supposed to do. He says that designers have a moral responsibility to improve the lives of those who use their designs. I agree with what he’s saying, but I think it is a little more complicated. As designers, our job is to tell a message to the public. Wether or not it is political commentary or selling a product, it is our job to tell that message. However, it is still a job. Most of the time, we cannot dictate the objective. If we are told to make something that goes against what we believe in, then they’ll find a designer who’ll make it. I think his theory works when we are our own bosses, but when we are working for a corporation, we have no choice in the matter.

The next sections that interested me was sections that talked about the rejection of many of the concepts and ideologies that might enable a more ethical design culture. Being from multiple different ethnic backgrounds, I was interested about what this meant. It starts off talking about culture jamming, which was something we just did as an excursive. The book explains culture jamming isn’t attacking the companies and advertisers. Culture jammers acknowledge that there is power in subverting them by turning their messages to advantage – in a very graphic way. I thought this was pretty interesting, because it takes something that already exist and appropriate it into something else. The book goes into detail about those you appropriate ads about brands to reveal truths. One example was the Absolute ads. The designer(s) took a truth, which was  Absolute’s high alcohol content, and used a one of their ads to make something new. I really like culture jamming. I think it’s a fun way to tell a truth about a brand.

I though this last chapter was a good end. The book as a whole provided information about ideologies about design and how a designer fits into society. The book also went into different way we can communicate visually and the rules we must follow for that design to work. The last chapter also explained the age old question, are designers artist, which the book gave a beautiful answer that I can agree with.  

Objective: Get people to understand that they need to start taking actions to take care of the environment for the later generations.

Issue: People aren’t caring about the environment and turn a blind eye to blatant environmental issues.

Insight: A lot of people feel that the issues aren’t important now, because they feel that it doesn’t negatively affect them now. 

Challenge: Get people to understand that their actions have consequences in the future.

Objective: Get college students to not get distracted while walking across the street. 

Issue: College student s are getting hit by cars, because there are not paying attention when crossing.

Insight: People are so glued to their devices, it makes them unaware of the outside world.

Challenge: Getting people to think twice before walking across the road.

Objective: To get people to understand that college level art programs are a lot of work. 

Issue: People stigmatize art majors, thinking we don’t work as hard as other majors.

Insight: Due to stigmas, people are led to believe art majors art hard workers. 

Challenge: Get people to see through the veil of ignorance and understand that making art isn’t easy. 

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-you-should-take-art-majors-seriously

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/11/what-can-you-really-do-with-a-degree-in-the-arts/382300/

Do People Really Care about the Environment?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/may/09/why-we-couldnt-care-less-about-the-natural-world

https://transfersmagazine.org/walking-on-the-wild-side-distracted-pedestrians-and-traffic-safety/

https://www.safety.com/distracted-walking-a-major-pedestrian-safety-concern/

1. People who don’t take art or art majors seriously, and think we don’t work as hard.
2. People who don’t care about nature and the lasting effects for the future generations.
3. People who are distracted while crossing the street.

• 

• 

• 

I like, because I like the visual aspect. It is very simple but powerful. I also like the visual metaphors.

I like these, because they are very powerful. I like that they are showing that they are hurting themselves while hurting others. I’d incorporate the flat vector images with the photography to make a visual metaphor.

I like these, because they incorporate fruit with iconography. I’m trying to do a similar thing with flowers and flower petals. I also like the flat colors that correspond to the fruit.

#1

Objective: Help people (age 18-30) find a meaning connection with others

Issue: Younger generations are finding it difficult to find a meaningful connection with someone due to their reliance on technology.

Insight: People love the feeling of being ‘liked,’ but fall short when it comes to an actual conversation.

Challenge: Get people to understand that a conversation blossoms when meeting face to face.

#2

Objective: Educate people (age 18-30) to be more conscious of the power that a picture has over people and their desires.

Issue: People are disregarding their safety and the treatment of their surroundings for the sake of a like or follow.

Insight: People want to recreate a photo or capture a similar experience by any means necessary.

Challenge: Help people understand that a picture is worth the consequences.

#3

Objective: Get others (age18-30) to understand that technology shouldn’t be used as an escape from the outside world.

Issue: People are relying heavily on their devices to escape communicating with others in the real world.

Insight: People like to turn off from the world. Pretending to listen to music, text, or answer a call is a way for people to get out of talking to people.

Challenge: Get people to turn on when others are around them.

Bibliography

1. https://newrepublic.com/article/153603/instagram-ruined-great-outdoors
2. https://this.deakin.edu.au/self-improvement/has-online-dating-changed-the-nature-of-human-relationships

I found chapter 02 of the book interesting. The book explains how styles develop in our society and how they are incorporated into our lifestyles. In the beginning, the author starts explaining the meaning of culture and what classifies as a “culture.” I though this was very interesting, because the book talks about trends and how trends can be incorporated into cultures. I think a prime example is what is happening now. There is a trend about using metal straws and recyclable products, and from this, we are becoming more eco-friendly and conscious, slowly but it’s getting there. So, advertisers are now seeing the desires of the people, which are more eco-friendly items, and are creating and advertising products for that market. I was astonished that the book accurately explains something that is going on now.

Something else that the book talks about that kinda blew my mind was the way it talked about our homes. The book explained that our house is a place where we don’t need to visually communicate something, because we are shut-off from the outside world. There is no-one there to judge your fashion, see that your room is a little messy, or see you have some crumbs on the floor. Those are just basics of living, however, the way we advertise has changed our view of what our home should look like. Because there are TV shows and magazines showing pristine cleanliness. From this, we, as a culture, decided that we need to have this unrealistic standard of cleanliness. We’ve decided that just in case someone comes over and sees our place, that the floor should be perfect, the couch should be perfect, our kitchen should be perfect and etc. I was always told that a clean house makes you look put together, but a dirty house makes you look messy and disorganized. These are things that I’ve been told to my entire life, but with no reason. If I leave a shirt or two on my chair, that doesn’t make me messy and disorganized, but it still bothers me. This was a pretty eye opening part, because I realized that designers really can change the way you think. Showing clean houses and pristine decor has changed the way we think. 

Another part of the chapter was talking about how all are is political. As an art student, we have all heard this before, but I didn’t think that this applies to all media of art. The book talks about fashion and how we use fashion to visually communicate something to the people around us. I never really thought about fashion as a visual communication tool. I never though of the reason why I liked curtain articles of clothing and hated others. It’s because I want my clothing to convey an aspect of my personality and some stuff doesn’t appeal to it. Absolutely fascinating!

I thought this section was very informative. This is extremely important for the next project, and I will take all of what I learned into consideration.