A Career in Graphic Design

Have you ever wondered who creates the fantastic movie posters, the stunning magazine ads or covers, the innovative company logos, the symbols and icons that help you find your way around an airport or museum, or the amazing show opens for TV shows and news programs. These and many more examples are created by graphic designers.

Graphic designers are highly skilled and talented communicators. Their work helps sell and market the products you buy, aid in explaining complicated messages, and help in visually demonstrating a particular process. Designers work in various mediums from illustration and photography to computer generated imagery.

To work in the field of graphic design you must have strong skills in observation and find great satisfaction in analyzing the details that are all around you. Designers study the specific characteristics of color and texture and how these elements are merged to create the never ending variations that comprise design. They are always aware of the rhythm, repetition, and balance of all visual components. Designers view the world conceptually and are constantly trying to create solutions that are innovative and unexpected. They enjoy creating ideas that express value and meaning and a good designer understands people, so they can create concepts that will relate a particular product to a specific demographic. Graphic designers have a strong knowledge of marketing and can produce visual solutions that reinforce the client's message. They are aware of the world around them and how current events, culture, and society play an important role in the creative trends of the marketplace.

A career in Graphic Design will expose you to a world of exciting and innovative professional possibilities and can take you to creative destinations beyond your imagination.

Graphic Designers can be found in a wide variation of businesses such as advertising agencies, design firms, marketing and public relations agencies, publishing companies and major production studios including, Disney, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, Lucas Film, and Dreamworks. Network television stations and all affiliate stations also use graphic designers.

Graphic designers work on projects for advertising, corporate communications, package design, editorial design, corporate identity, environmental design, book design, and film/broadcast design. Working in the field of graphic design will allow you to work on a wide variety of projects that start with concept development and end with the final produced pieces. Some examples of graphic design projects might be brochures, magazine layouts and cover design, posters and promotional campaigns, advertisements, packaging, web design, interactive media, Powerpoint presentations, corporate identity, letterheads and business cards, logos and symbol design, t-shirts, signage systems, television graphics, film titles, catalogs, and much more.

Large corporations also have in-house design departments and designers work on company related campaigns using the existing branded materials to create original and innovative visual packages known as brand management.

Graphic designers are specialists at communicating a specific message to a designated audience. They can visually create a mood and cause you to experience a particular emotion from laughter to design that touches your heart.

Designers are experts at using typography, the most important tool for creating the desired message. They use type the way a surgeon uses a scalpel, with expert precision. Graphic designers are expected to be able to combine type with imagery to produce design solutions that solve a wide variety of design and communication problems. The specific arrangements of type and imagery allow the desired message to be communicated to the client's intended audience or consumer. The ability of the designer to create the best combination of visual elements will help in the successful selling and marketing of the product.

Symbol and logo design is another important skill for the graphic designer. This type of design allows for the creation of dynamic information "marks" that identify an individual or an entire corporation. Logos such as McDonald's golden arches or the NIKE swoosh are unmistakable and instantly recognizable corporate identities. Symbols, pictographs and icons are also part of Environmental Design.

These are elements of a system of non-verbal communication known as Wayfinding. Designers create entire collections of visual symbols that are immediately understood by audiences from around the world. The skill is to create non-verbal communication that anyone from anywhere can instantly understand. The symbol system created for the recent Bejing 2008 Olympics is a good example since people attended this event from around the globe. The designers' goal was to create imagery that represented each event as well as the country that hosted the Olympics.

Graphic designers may work as freelance talent hired by a wide range of clients or work as in-house designers expected to wear many hats, designing everything from business cards to promotional advertisements to the company web site.

To summarize, a career as a graphic designer will give you the opportunity to work with content in a wide variety of media and create strong and meaningful visual statements for retail consumer markets, the entertainment industry, public relations, and the educational, medical, and advertising fields. Graphic designers have the necessary skills to communicate the client's message using engaging, clever, and innovative combinations of type and imagery. Their work enhances, informs, educates, motivates, explains, excites, and inspires.

Editorial provided by Michael Goldberg, Assistant Academic Chair Graphic Design, Associate Professor, The New England Institute of Art, Brookline, MA.