Graphic Design Skills
A graphic design project may involve the stylization and
presentation of existing text and either preexisting imagery
or images developed by the graphic designer. For example, a
newspaper story begins with the journalists and
photojournalists and then becomes the graphic designer's job
to organize the page into a reasonable layout and determine
if any other graphic elements should be required.
In a
magazine article or advertisement, often the graphic
designer or art director will commission photographers or
illustrators to create original pieces just to be
incorporated into the design layout. Or the designer may
utilize stock imagery or photography. Contemporary design
practice has been extended to the modern computer, for
example in the use of WYSIWYG user interfaces, often
referred to as interactive design, or multimedia design.
- Visual arts
Before any
graphic elements may be applied to a design, the graphic
elements must be originated by means of visual art skills.
These graphics are often (but not always) developed by a
graphic designer. Visual arts include works which are
primarily visual in nature using anything from traditional
media, to photography or computer generated art. Graphic
design principles may be applied to each graphic art element
individually as well as to the final composition.
- Typography
Typography is the art,
craft and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs,
and arranging type. Type glyphs (characters) are created and
modified using a variety of illustration techniques. The
arrangement of type is the selection of typefaces, point
size, line length, leading (line spacing) and letter
spacing.
Typography is performed by typesetters,
compositors, typographers, graphic artists, art directors,
and clerical workers. Until the Digital Age, typography was
a specialized occupation.
Digitization opened up typography
to new generations of visual designers and lay users.
- Page layout
The page layout aspect
of graphic design deals with the arrangement of elements
(content) on a page, such as image placement, and text
layout and style. Beginning from early illuminated pages in
hand-copied books of the Middle Ages and proceeding down to
intricate modern magazine and catalogue layouts, structured
page design has long been a consideration in printed
material. With print media, elements usually consist of type
(text), images (pictures), and occasionally place-holder
graphics for elements that are not printed with ink such as
die/laser cutting, foil stamping or blind embossing.
- User interface design
Since
the advent of the World Wide Web and computer software
development, many graphic designers have become involved in
interface design. This has included web design and software
design, when end user interactivity is a design
consideration of the layout or interface. Combining visual
communication skills with the interactive communication
skills of user interaction and online branding, graphic
designers often work with software developers and web
developers to create both the look and feel of a web site or
software application and enhance the interactive experience
of the user or web site visitor. An important aspect of
interface design is icon design.
- Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making
artworks by printing on paper and other materials or
surfaces. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is
capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is
called a print. Each piece is not a copy but an original
since it is not a reproduction of another work of art and is
technically known as an impression. Painting or drawing, on
the other hand, create a unique original piece of artwork.
Prints are created from a single original surface, known
technically as a matrix.
Common types of matrices include:
plates of metal, usually copper or zinc for engraving or
etching; stone, used for lithography; blocks of wood for
woodcuts, linoleum for linocuts and fabric plates for
screen-printing. But there are many other kinds, discussed
below. Works printed from a single plate create an edition,
in modern times usually each signed and numbered to form a
limited edition. Prints may also be published in book form,
as artist's books. A single print could be the product of
one or multiple techniques.
- Chromatics
Chromatics is
the field of how eyes perceive color and how to explain and
organize those colors in the printer and on the monitor. The
Retina in the eye is covered by two light-sensitive
receptors that are named rods and cones. Rods are sensitive
to light, but not sensitive to color. Cones are the opposite
of rods. They are less sensitive to light, but color can be
perceived.
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