Know before you hate

This semester I have a studio lighting photography class. We will be learning all about different types of lighting set ups and what works best for different contexts. Today we brought in samples of photos in which we liked the lighting. One person brought in an image of some flip flops with some flowery designs around them from some kind of advertisement. The teacher looked at it and said, "I don't think this is a real photograph. I'm pretty sure this is all CGI (Computer Generated Images)." One of the more outspoken class members exclaimed with some bitterness, "I hate graphic designers!"

Now it may be true that a few designers out there work with CGI software but the the popular belief is that someone who manipulates images using a computer is a graphic designer. That is far from the truth. Designers are communicators. Rather than communicating with our voices we use visuals to communicate. Digital imaging DOES NOT EQUAL graphic design! Some of the greatest designers right now hardly touch a computer. Most of the work they do is done by hand and then they pay someone to digitize it so that it can be mass produced. Some designers spend tons of time on the computer but that is not a requirement. You are free to hate us but before you hate please know who you are actually hating.

Why Design?

If only I could photograph the reaction of every person that asks me what I do for a living! When I tell them I am a graphic designer, surprisingly, only about 45% of people know what that is. Most people give me a fake smile and nod their heads. They try to hide it but their faces are overflowing with confusion. I can see them searching their brains to try to remember "what does a graphic designer do again?". What is even worse is that most of those people have a very skewed idea of what a designer actually does. I'll get a call from someone who says, "I want a website and I don't care what it looks like but I want it to work!" Or on the other hand some people micromanage the projects to death and tell me that I don't have to think about anything, and that my job is just to make it "look pretty".

To put it as simply as possible, my job as a designer is to communicate. I create the visual elements that represent my clients. What the guy that wants a website doesn't understand is that if it looks terrible then it really doesn't work at all! The information has to be easy to process and understand, it has to be user-friendly.

Because it is often difficult to describe what graphic design is all about and why it is so important I decided to compare it to something that everyone knows about. . . clothing. I have created this fun little animation to help people understand graphic design by comparing it to clothing.