(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:14
008-017_13937.indd 14008-017_13937.indd 14 8/25/09 12:56:24 PM8/25/09 12:56:24 PM
Text
Understanding Design
from a Design Perspective
Luz del Carmen A. Vilchis Esquivel, PhD
1,000 Ideas by 100 Graphic Designers
is a cu-
mulus of ideas that do not generally crop up
in the everyday world of graphic design. As
a matter of fact, one would be hard pressed
to actually hear a graphic designer’s voice.
We know designers through their designs, as
professionals immersed in a project, whether
traditionally pouring over a desk and drawing
sketch after sketch in an indefatigable factory
of ideas, or in a digital space, generating alter-
natives from a core concept.
The ideas in the design are always for the
design; designers think about the message,
they interpret it, and give it a meaning that en-
compasses the central signifi cance as well as
underlying ones; they choose the ideal medium
or mediums for the conception and carry out
a series of functional steps to achieve a fi nal
result: the design creation.
Nevertheless, talking about this process is not
easy. It requires a great introspective effort,
“directing attention towards the design itself,”
towards the designer’s personal trajectory, to-
wards a series of lessons from experiences that
have left a permanent imprint on the individual. It
also requires an attitude of generosity to distill all
this information, and extract fragments of knowl-
edge and know-how.
In the Shoes of a Graphic Designer
When we imagine 1,000 ideas on graphic de-
sign, we can compare this concept with the
well-known basic guide of colors that unfolds
like an attractive range of tones, saturations,
and levels of shininess, which can be combined
to create the 16 million colors available to us on
the digital color pallet.
The fi rst pillar of these tips is an accumu-
lation of years of practice and knowledge on
composition, on a structure’s values, on visual
literacy, about semantic characteristics, de-
grees of iconicity, frameworks, or, in a nutshell,
a mastery of visual grammar.
There are also aspects relating to genre, that
is, decisions about the best means to transmit
the message through the right medium, in rela-
tion to the assortment of objects encompassed
in design: books, magazines, newspapers, an-
nual reports, packaging, promotional materials,
posters, wall advertisements, mobile publicity,
architectural signage, corporate identities, to
complex visual structures such as campaigns,
signage systems, corporate identities, brands
and products, without forgetting the full scope
of linear and nonlinear narratives, ranging
from comic strips to animation and multimedia
graphics.
Finally, there are the determining factors of
all visual communications, the different pur-
poses for which the design is made, taking into
account the special ways of communicating with
issuers and receivers: publicity, propaganda,
educational or cultural material, informative
design, indicative design, even ornamental or
plastic design.
1
Each of these modalities refers to specifi c
values of the message and important rhetori-
cal resources. Graphic designers have to con-
stantly oscillate between the visual rhetoric
for seducing, persuading, or convincing, and
the rhetoric of implication and exaltation, or
between the rhetoric of learning and the in-
formation being transmitted to the borders of
aesthetics and leisure.
T
O
o
in
u
s
th
r
in
d
e
is
ti
m
s
r
c
d
it
it
m
p
ju
a
t
t
w
w
h
t
c
ti
s
a
d
14 1,000 Ideas by 100 Graphic Designers
1
Vilchis Esquivel, .
Diseño. Universo de conocimiento
, p. 11-28.
1
J
3
(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:14
008-017_13937.indd 14008-017_13937.indd 14 8/25/09 12:56:03 PM8/25/09 12:56:03 PM
D
esigners
)
Page:14
(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:15
008-017_13937.indd 15008-017_13937.indd 15 8/25/09 12:56:24 PM8/25/09 12:56:24 PM
Text
mu-
on
ual
de-
ell,
hat
mit
la-
sed
an-
als,
ity,
to
ns,
nds
ope
ng
dia
of
ur-
nto
with
da,
ive
or
ifi c
ri-
on-
ric
and
or
in-
of
The Imprints of Design
Our understanding graphic design expresses
our most immediate thoughts: knowledge aris-
ing from the perception of the design object
upon capturing its characteristics, contrasts in
shape and color and the quality of the means,
the effi ciency of the medium, and its external
relations. Understanding is explaining, unfold-
ing the design, detailing its contents and un-
derstanding its signifi cance. As Jorge Frascara
explains, “The design of visual communication
is an intellectual, social, aesthetic, and prac-
tical discipline, which consequently involves
many levels of human abilities: power of analy-
sis, mental fl exibility, clarity of judgment, visual
refi nement, technical knowledge, manual skills,
cultural awareness and ethical responsibility.”
1
Understanding graphic design is also going
deep into the object being designed, transferring
its forms and grasping it, squeezing it, hugging
it, making it something intimate and personal,
making it part of you, melting it, sharing it. It is a
profound act of interpretation that explains and
justifi es the motives of the graphic design.
Recapitulating, the designer redirects his
attention towards his own design and judges
the essential elements to be able to express
them in words, describing and committing the
word that expresses the fundaments of that
which is known.
The knowledge of what has been designed
here takes on importance in the voices of
those who accept the risk of increasing their
commitment to the design in a collective ac-
tion, in the need to identify their thinking in
specifi c ideas, more specifi cally, constructing
an ideology and directing attention toward the
design’s social impact.
This journey goes beyond bringing the design
to life. It does not peter out in the explanation,
rather it focuses on human effort and involves
conscious ethical, sociological, anthropological,
and aesthetic considerations, integrated in a
conceptual compilation that, on different levels
of graphic design, constitutes what is called
global vision, objective spirit, or ideology.
Participating in an act of refl ecting on, eval-
uating and disseminating the graphic design,
from a practical and personal perspective, is
an external manifestation, an act of defi nition
stemming from the discovery of the self, and it
involves deliberation, intention, and purpose.
“It is important to grasp the design with liber-
ty…our lives and thoughts actually have a com-
prehensive nature…we should have the liberty
to examine the design…through this process of
interaction, new impulses are obtained in the
creation of new designs…”
2
Listening to the Voices of Designers
Graphic design, impregnated with its origins
of a deep practical meaning, cannot evade the
many ideas and approaches generated by hu-
man behavior.
For this, it is important to understand graph-
ic design, in each of its facets and as a whole,
in each stage of the process and as a fi nished
project, as this implicitly contains the interpre-
tation of the discipline itself which, just like any
other area of human knowledge, requires maxi-
mum effort in the generation of ideas.
3
Understanding design in this way is the task
of intelligence, which identifi es the needs and
sets out the alternative solutions. The variety
of interpretative conceptions affi rms, in all the
tones and for the different reasons, the diver-
Luz del Carmen A. Vilchis Esquivel, PhD
Mexican. Postgraduate Professor of the National
School of Visual Arts (ENAP) of the National Autono-
mous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is a member
of SIN-CONACYT and the Design Research Society.
She studied Graphic Design and Philosophy and also
has a Master’s degree in Communication and a PhD
in Fine Arts from Spain and in Philosophy from Mexi-
co. She has published nine books on graphic design
and sixty-one articles, collaborated in eleven works
and reviewed forty-three international articles. She
assists in preparing programs in various univer-
sities, teaching and delivering numerous national
and international conferences. She has carried out
professional graphic design projects for companies
in several countries, and has exhibited her works in
more than forty sole and group exhibitions in Mexi-
co and abroad. She has management experience in
private initiatives and was Director of the ENAP of
the UNAM.
15
1
Jorge Frascara,
El diseño de comunicación
, p. 165.
2
Takenobu Igarashi, «Mi relación con el diseño», p. 37.
3
Dr. Luz del Carmen A. Vilchis Esquivel,
Diseño. Universo de conocimiento
, p. 11-28.
D
esigners
)
Page:14
(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:15
008-017_13937.indd 15008-017_13937.indd 15 8/25/09 12:56:03 PM8/25/09 12:56:03 PM
(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:16
008-017_13937.indd 16008-017_13937.indd 16 8/25/09 12:56:24 PM8/25/09 12:56:24 PM
Text
sity of the arguments and the multiplicity of the
currents that coexist in design spheres, and
which give shape to interests and aspirations
in daily life, in graphic language, and in soci-
ety’s visual culture.
As Tomás Maldonado said in a visionary way,
communication that does not fulfi ll the demands
of “living dialog between men of the same era”
does not comprehend its meaning. Communi-
cation, stated the author, is not a resource of
solitary persons but of social individuals in ev-
eryday situations.
1
The most important of all this is that despite
the plurality of trends, methodologies and proj-
ects that are expressed about and from design,
the deeper aspects of their comprehension are
a common denominator underpinning the theo-
ry and practice of the discipline.
This is a space of professional perspectives,
an interesting collaboration between counter-
parts that will cause the conception of the de-
sign and the design creation to differ. This di-
dactic sequence, formed of tips that transform
the design of today into a series of fl exible and
changing fi elds of knowledge, are points of ref-
erence to resolve and identify designs’ needs
and solutions.
Trajectories of the Perspective, Itinerar-
ies of Ideas
This variety of responses and explanations
opens a horizon enabling the dominant aspect
of graphic design to shed its “we do” aspect, to
open the way for “we plan” against which the
design reaffi rms its creative capacity, from this
diversity of clear, intelligible, and hence, didac-
tic stances, that enable the design to be always
seen as an innovative unit.
All the ideas shown demonstrate the vari-
ability of methods, and show the plurality and
complexity of projects, leading graphic design
through routes that have the parallel capacity
to guide amateurs, students, and profession-
als.
Here the designer is not presented as a
monolithic being, an infl exible element, or glo-
rifi ed fi gure;
2
instead, emphasis is placed on
the fact that graphic design is as much a prac-
tice as a concept and that its cultural context,
added to the designer’s profi le, is a sphere that
converges with other spheres to create a sin-
gle universe of knowledge.
True communication in graphic design there-
fore entails knowing the special meaning of
imaginary visual aspects with emphasis on the
importance of meaning, legibility, and the po-
tential to interpret any kind of visual text.
After understanding design as a process, an
intervention, and a group of actions, it is fea-
sible to read the characteristics in each of its
parts as evidence of the analysis of its visual
grammar, its framework, its genres and dis-
courses, or in its expression as a whole, that
is, as a synthesis of a representative and sin-
gular medium. In any of these options, thought
and speculation on the design creation always
generate maturity and an awakening in the de-
signer himself.
Graphic design thus shows the need for a
constant interpretation and analysis of its vari-
ants from stances that do not compromise or
pleasure themselves, but on the contrary, dem-
onstrate the rigor with which a designer is able
to qualify himself and evaluate his work
Each conjecture presented here is in itself
a moment of refl ection on the “thinking” and
“
p
e
g
th
m
v
th
c
th
s
e
a
s
th
in
ti
te
o
“
w
th
jo
th
t
w
s
p
c
t
C
T
h
r
16 1,000 Ideas by 100 Graphic Designers
1
Tomás Maldonado,
Escritos preulmianos
, p. 91-93.
2
Penny Sparke,
An Introduction to Design and Culture
, p. 1-9.
1
A
(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:16
008-017_13937.indd 16008-017_13937.indd 16 8/25/09 12:56:03 PM8/25/09 12:56:03 PM
D
esigners
)
Page:16
(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:17
008-017_13937.indd 17008-017_13937.indd 17 8/25/09 12:56:24 PM8/25/09 12:56:24 PM
Text
-
d
n
y
-
a
-
n
-
t,
at
-
-
of
e
-
n
-
s
al
-
at
-
ht
s
-
a
-
r
-
e
lf
d
“doing” of the design, which opens the way to
pursuing responsibility in its application in the
education and professionalization of future
graphic designers. This is the perfect fusion of
theory and practice.
1
This work seeks evidence of the budgets that
make the design possible and its insertion into
visual culture in concise capsules that show:
the dimension of the designer, the replicas of
countless questions about the design creation,
the identifi cation of the alternatives given as a
set of visual correlations and notes to identify
each of his projects, the structure of meaning
and its translation into written gestures as re-
sponses to stimuli that favor each decision in
the design process.
We must show appreciation for these thoughts
in the form of tips or short ideas, whose opera-
tions of recognition and internalization of con-
texts and experiences explore the strategies
of graphic design and its vestiges in thought:
“The essential relationship of the imagination
with reason and the consequent conversion of
the entire anthropological route in a semantic
journey,”
2
that is, the meaning in the imprints of
the design creation.
When the behaviors of the designers and
their conditions for creativity are identifi ed,
when the conditions of application of their own
skills and qualities are determined, when the
personality of the designer is established in a
completed and resolved design, only then can
the graphic design be truly understood.
Conclusions
The graphic designer, issuer and receiver of
his own messages and those of other people, is
responsible for what he does; and upon mani-
festing himself in his designs, he responds with
his work to communicative intentions and their
integration with the purposes of others’ com-
mon purposes.
The express responsibility of the designer on
visual messages issued in a public medium is the
duty of intelligence and imagination. The codes
of the design and their confi guration in the de-
sign creation are catalogs of behavior that the
responsibility of designing generates according
to the communication needs of each culture.
The role of graphic design is a commitment to
the form and its imperatives, one way of creat-
ing an obligation with the design creation, in-
cluding direction, competence, demand, antag-
onism or concurrence—specifi c details based
on the routine nature of everyday life and the
existence of principles that ultimately form the
foundations supporting the discipline.
Each of the designer’s requirements is mani-
fested as a skill—a natural ability that enables
him to realize a creative behavior—but this
generic attitude is formed and learned across
time, the designer acquires knowledge, meth-
ods, technical skills and is particularized to
constitute the dominion of what really matters
here: graphic design.
Understanding Design from a Design Perspective 17
Bibliography
Babolín, Sante.
Producción de sentido
. Bogotá: Uni-
versidad Pedagógica Nacional, 2005.
Coumans, Anke. “The visual essay. Refl exivity in the
design process”.
The Refl exive Zone.
Utrecht: Utrecht
School of the Arts, 2004.
Frascara, Jorge.
El diseño de comunicación.
Buenos
Aires: Infi nito, 2006.
Igarashi, Takenobu. “Mi relación con el diseño”.
En-
sayos sobre el diseño
. Buenos Aires: Infi nito, 2001.
Maldonado, Tomás.
Escritos preulmianos.
Buenos Ai-
res: Infi nito, 1997.
Ricard, André.
Diseño. ¿Por qué?
Barcelona: Gustavo
Gili, 1982.
Sparke, Penny.
An Introduction to Design and Cultu-
re.
London: Routledge, 2005.
Vilchis Esquivel, Luz del Carmen.
Diseño. Universo de
conocimiento.
Mexico: Claves Latinoamericanas, 1999.
1
Anke Coumans, «The visual essay. Refl exivity in the design process», p. 19-27.
2
Sante Babolin,
Producción de sentido
, p. 49.
D
esigners
)
Page:16
(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:17
008-017_13937.indd 17008-017_13937.indd 17 8/25/09 12:56:03 PM8/25/09 12:56:03 PM
(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:18
018-025_13937.indd 18018-025_13937.indd 18 8/25/09 12:52:30 PM8/25/09 12:52:30 PM
Text(RAY)
08-13937 Job:08-13923 Title:RP-1000 Ideas x 100 Graghic Designers
#175 Dtp:160(P) Page:18
018-025_13937.indd 18018-025_13937.indd 18 8/25/09 12:52:18 PM8/25/09 12:52:18 PM
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.