Graphic design is the art, profession, and academic discipline whose activity consists of projecting visual communications aimed at transmitting specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Therefore, it is an interdisciplinary branch of design1 whose foundations and objectives revolve around the definition of problems and the determination of objectives for decision-making, through creativity, innovation, and lateral thinking together with digital tools, transforming them for their proper interpretation. This activity helps to optimize graphic communications. It is also known by the name of visual communication design or visual design.
The role of the graphic designer in the communication process is that of the encoder or interpreter of the message. Works on the interpretation, ordering, and presentation of visual messages. Design work always starts from a client's demand, a demand that ends up being established linguistically, either orally or in writing, that is, the graphic design transforms a linguistic message into a graphic manifestation.2
Graphic design has, as a field of application, different areas of knowledge focused on any visual communication system. For example, it can be applied in advertising strategies, or also applied in the world of aviation.3 In this sense, in some countries graphic design is related as only associated with the elaboration of sketches and drawings, this is incorrect, since visual communication is a small part of a huge range of types and classes where it can be applied.
Given the rapid and massive growth in the exchange of information, the demand for experienced designers is greater than ever, particularly because of the development of new technologies and the need to pay attention to human factors that are beyond the competence of engineers who develop them.
Visual communication graphic design needs to satisfy is a specialty or profession whose objective. It deals with organizing images and text, generally produced by mechanical means, with communicating a specific message to a particular social group and with clear and defined objectives.
Advertising There are several types of graphic designs:
Persuasive design: this type of design is oriented towards advertising. It consists of influencing the behavior of the subject observing said design; being used frequently by commercial companies in order to attract the public.
Design for the administration: this kind of design is used for the creation of forms, tickets, invoices, etc.
Design for information: is dedicated to the manufacture of magazines, newspapers, books, etc. in the same way, it is used for the manufacture of traffic signs.
Education design: this style of design is applied in the field of education, having to design all kinds of school books, didactic cards, etc.
Designs of command instruments: it is used in the manufacture of all types of controls that exist such as cameras, watches, computers.The importance of graphic design is based on the fact that it develops different strategies to achieve communication from a visual approach; This fact is highly relevant from a marketing point of view since it makes it possible to create different presentations that will immediately communicate value to a potential buyer.
An environment where graphic design has a huge weight is in the manufacture of newspapers and megazine; since if it is intended to generate some type of loyalty from the public, all the visual elements must be designed in an aesthetic way.
The graphic design relies on a group of elements that help to conceive, organize, project, and carry out visual communications or graphic works. Some of them are point, line, figure and background, plane, space and volume, asymmetry and symmetry, rhythm and balance, texture and color, time, and movement.
At present, digital tools have been imposed, when creating graphic designs, some of them are Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Publisher, Pixie, among others.
Yusuf Bhandarkar