You know that other thread you have about getting an internship?
Your first sentence tells me that you do not have the chops yet. As does the rest of your theory regarding color.
Personal taste has absolutely NOTHING to do with graphic design. It isn’t your Art. It’s your client’s Branding. Red, black and the color of the product (a brown) are accurate branding in this instance.
If you don’t like the colors in the Brand Guideline, too bad.
You could not be more wrong.
Can you explain why I’m wrong?
The client is choosing you because of your artistic vision, but if you want to be a complete slave to the client and follow his every word without a say in the matter, then you’re just a guy or girl working in a factory doing a craft without any artistic say in the matter. Also, evaluating someone from a post they made asking a question is honestly quite funny. And, if you don’t consider graphic design art, then that’s another story. I personally see it as art, well it’s art mixed with business, there must be balance. Since people started treating graphic design as only a business we don’t see graphic designers like Art Chantry anymore.
Around three-quarters of my work over the past 25 years has involved designing materials for the outdoor recreation industry. My tastes gravitate toward a look conducive to what’s appropriate for that market segment. Consequently, my sensitivities have enabled me to do well in a design style that exudes the characteristics that resonate with me and the target audience. In this respect, my personal preferences have been relevant.
However…
I’m not a fan of pink, but when I’ve taken on jobs where the best solution to the client’s problem has involved pink, I have sat aside my personal preferences out of necessity.
I once designed a book aimed at 9- to 13-year-old girls. Never having been a young girl, I needed to shift my style away from mountain bikes, backpacking, and hunting to incorporate an aesthetic sensitivity that would appeal to the target audience. Doing so included a liberal use of pink and powder blue, along with the frills, glitter, and cute, bubbly typefaces that would appeal to the target audience. Doing so required some mental gymnastics, but the book turned out nice, sold well, and even won a book design award.
As designers, we have a professional responsibility to set aside our personal preferences and prioritize what’s most appropriate for the job at hand. This is not always easy, but it’s a crucial part of our role. By doing so, we can better serve our clients and create designs that meet their needs.
Nutella is a dark chocolate brown, the product’s brand colors are dark brown and red. If you accept a job from Nutella, you will be working with red and brown. Your personal preference to use another color scheme would be irrelevant. Pushing for your preferences would be counterproductive and not in the client’s best interests.
The most appropriate design decisions for some design work call for using brown. Some do not. Basing design decisions on your dislike of brown isn’t appreciably different in principle and no less unnecessarily restrictive and counterproductive than a writer preferring to avoid using words containing the letter K.
No, they’re not. And if they are, they’re mistaken.
Clients choose designers for business reasons that typically involve selling products, promoting ideas, or influencing the views and opinions of target audiences.
Artistic abilities are only relevant to the degree that they play a role in accomplishing those predetermined objectives.
I stated that as a graphic designer you can choose any colour depending on your personal taste, I didn’t mention any design work for a client. The title of a graphic designer doesn’t mean working under someone, it could for some, and that’s where you can talk about the client’s opinion, but many graphic designers just practice design as an art form. If I dislike the colour brown that’s my own choice and I will not use it in a poster.
Are you a graphic designer without your artistic abilities?
or are you a graphic designer because you can use Photoshop?
OK, I don’t disagree with that, but you’re straying into the area of fine art, which differs from the norm of what graphic design is typically about. Most of the participants in this forum are professional designers or design students who intend to make a living doing graphics design. There aren’t many here who view it as a personal means of artistic expression.
If someone wants to design a Nutella ad (or anything else) for the personal satisfaction of doing so, that’s great. I take that same approach in my drawing projects and typeface designs.
Artistic and software skills are crucial, but there are also critical thinking skills, marketing savvy, a bit of psychology, business acumen, communication skills, teamwork, and numerous other abilities. Artistic and software skills are only two of the tools in a successful designer’s toolbox.
You aren’t going to have much work then. If you are hired to do a job you better do what you are hired for or you might not get paid or worse, sued for breach of contract. Graphic Design is NOT about YOU! It’s about the CLIENT!
Graphic design is commercial art. There’s fine art and commercial art. A personal opinion cannot be viewed as right or wrong, If I think that graphic design must be artistic because of my personal view of it, I don’t see the problem with that. I read the guidelines and I didn’t see “you must consider graphic design as only a business.”
And this is why almost all logos, posters, brochures look the same. There’s really no innovation in graphic design anymore. It’s just a bunch of designers copying a “trend” to impress the client who is probably not aware that another company has the same logo as his company.
If you want to pursue fine art that incorporates elements of graphic design, that’s totally up to you, and you’ll get no arguments from me against choosing that direction.
However, if you want to make a living as a graphic designer, it’s not an especially wise choice. If you want to pursue a fine arts approach to graphic design in the evenings and on weekends after your day job, that’s great.
Again, graphic design is commercial art not fine art. Art Chantry, Stefan Sagmesiter, Saul Bass, these are all examples of graphic artists who used graphic design as an art form and a business at the same time. I didn’t know the graphic design is art statement would offend people in a graphic design forum haha, I apologize to the hard working employees fighting rasters and vectors everyday.
You’re not offending anyone. But as you have admitted you are a student, and I assume a student with little to no real world experience. Many of the people who have provided feedback to you have 25+ years experience in the field, including myself.
Depending on the client, depending on the client’s brand and depending on the purpose of the piece you are designing there “may” be some personal artistic expression involved. Such as for example producing something for say a skateboarding company, or maybe Nike or even Coke. But even in those instances (especially coke) you’ll still have some brand constraints that you must work within.
But you also need to keep in mind that graphic design touches a huge amount of what we see and interact with in the world. Every product on the shelves, every website you visit, every app on your phone. Some better then others. And in many of those instances companies have curated an overall brand style both in their look and feel, their brand voice. their brand colors. And as a designer, you need to work within those brands to communicate the brand image they want to portray, and in some cases it is clean cut and corporate (take banks or hospitals for example), in some cases it may be more elegant and refined (luxury goods and services) and in some cases they tap into a more artistic and playful expression (such as some lifestyle brands or potentially brands geared towards young adults.)
And yes, there is an art to designing and designing well, even producing more clean and corporate work such as for a bank or hospital. But it isn’t art in the sense of fine art and personal expression.
Sure, you could focus on just clients that are more geared towards personal expression, but even then they generally are at the whim of who they are working for. So, you might create something you personally feel is great and is expressive and is art in your eyes, but they may come back to you and say, change this or change that, or can you incorporate more of this, or we need you too use more of our primary brand colors. Because at the end of the day you are being paid and commissioned to produce something for the company that is paying you.
Graphic design is not fine art. It is re-enforcing and expressing a company’s brand to their customers in order to drive their business and generally to increase sales and revenue.
Perhaps pursuing a career as an illustrator would allow you more of a chance to be more personally expressive in your own personal art style, but now a days illustrators have many obstacles, and it is challenging to rise to the top where you would be a sought after commodity.
I never stated that graphic design is fine art, these are assumptions a user made because I stated that I see graphic design as an art form and a business at the same time. I do agree with a lot of the things you stated, but everyone has a personal approach to things. Some people want to work in a company, some people want to freelance, and some people such as myself want to use graphic design as an art form to attract clients that are interested in my style and expression. My approach to graphic design doesn’t have to be your approach. These people have experiences which benefits them but it doesn’t benefit me if I don’t want to follow the same approach as them, they would benefit someone who agrees with their approach more. Admitting that graphic design is not an art form because of your personal opinion and your work experience is not logical. If you tell me that graphic design is a business, I’m going to respect your opinion . Some replies are assuming that I consider the client’s opinion is not important, which doesn’t make sense because I never really stated that. But if you think I said that, then that’s not really my problem.
No one here is offended. It’s an interesting conversation that you’ve initiated.
I disagree with your assessment of Saul Bass. I’ve studied his work extensively, and I’ve worked closely with a couple of his former designers and art directors. Saul Bass’s philosophy was very much in tune with doing what was best for his clients and doing so exceptionally well, even when it meant pushing innovative ideas that weren’t initially embraced. His design work rarely, if ever, strayed into the art-for-art’s sake mentality.
Chantry and Sagmeister are different stories. You might also include April Greiman, Rudy Vanderlans, Elaine Cohen, David Carson, and Jessica Walsh, among others. They’ve carved out interesting niches for themselves that do as you’re suggesting — pushing the boundaries of graphic design into fine art (my definition) and somehow making a living and a reputation for themselves.
Again, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the approach these people have taken or denying the success they’ve achieved in doing so.
However, a beginning designer’s chances of achieving that kind of success with design solutions that place form ahead of function is microscopically small — even when living in large cities where a niche market exists for that kind of work. If you want to try, that’s up to you, but I would first recommend getting a formal education in the field.
25 years as a graphic designer, not an artistic bone in my body.
I can’t draw a stick figure.
I understand graphic design, hierarchy, branding, how to use software.
Ask me to be artistic and I haven’t a clue.
I might be wrong but some replies seemed a little offended and if I’m wrong I apologize. Saul Bass wouldn’t be Saul Bass without his vision or his art, he would just be another guy making film opening titles. He uses his art to work with the client, if the client doesn’t like Saul Bass’s style he could just move to another artist. As a graphic designer (in my opinion) you use your art to achieve the client’s goal, if the client doesn’t like the colors you used in a poster, you can change them but you’re still using your style and your vision. Or else businesses wouldn’t need graphic designers and anyone who can use the software would get a job easily just because they can use the software. His design work doesn’t have to stray into the art-for-art’s sake mentality if he’s using his art to make money and get a job.
Art Chantry " Graphic design is a weird art form; it is half business, half art."
I didn’t want to mention many designers because the three I mentioned sum up the way I view graphic design.
In my opinion, studying graphic design in a university is a waste of time unless you want to meet other designers. You can teach yourself graphic design and embark on practical learning journey such as getting jobs, finding other designers that you enjoy their work and understand their approach and experience, I believe the best way to learn is by doing. You can attend university and get a bachelor degree, that’s an appropriate path. But it doesn’t make you a good designer or a bad one, it just makes you someone with a degree in something. Your work should reflect your talents and vision, not the degrees you have accumulated.