10 facts about Graphic Design

Graphic design is the process of visual communication. From road signs to technical schematics, from interoffice memorandums to reference manuals, graphic design enhances transfer of knowledge and visual messages. The field is considered a subset of visual communication and communication design, but sometimes the term "graphic design" is used interchangeably with these due to overlapping skills involved. Graphic designers use various methods to create and combine words, symbols, and images to create a visual representation of ideas and messages. Below are ten facts about graphic design which you might not be aware of.

1. The name "Graphic Design" first appeared in print in the 1922 essay "New Kind of Printing Calls for New Design" by William Addison Dwiggins, an American book designer in the early 20th century.

2. Raffe's Graphic Design, published in 1927, is considered to be the first book to use "Graphic Design" in its title.

3. In 1849, Henry Cole became one of the major forces in design education in Great Britain, informing the government of the importance of design in his Journal of Design and Manufactures.

4. William Morris, an English textile designer and socialist activist, created a market for works of graphic design in their own right to create a profession for this new type of art for aspiring individuals who wish to earn a living through these skills. From 1891 to 1896, his Kelmscott Press published books that are some of the most significant of the graphic design products of the Arts and Crafts movement.

5. In the mid-1980s, the arrival of desktop publishing and graphic art software applications introduced a generation of designers to computer image manipulation and creation that had previously been manually executed.

6. Nearly all of the popular and "industry standard" software programs used for graphic design since the early 1990s are products of Adobe Systems Incorporated. They are Adobe Photoshop (a raster-based program for photo editing), Adobe Illustrator (a vector-based program for draw are often used in the final stage of the electronic design process.

7. Tools in computer graphics often take on traditional names such as "scissors" or "pen". Some graphic design tools such as a grid are used in both traditional and digital form.

8. Since the advent of the World Wide Web and computer software development, many graphic designers have become involved in interface design, in an environment commonly referred to as a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

9. Before any graphic elements may be applied to a design, the graphic elements must be originated by means of visual art skills.

10. The responsibilities of a graphic designer may come from, or lead to, specialized skills such as illustration, photography, animation or interactive design.