When I write regarding graphic design or even just introduce myself professionally, I make very little distinction between that and being an illustrator. My professional title is “Graphic Designer/Illustrator” which is driven by pure hubris. Getting that “illustrator” addition was the most satisfying moment of my career, but if we’re going by a definitional account of my job, it’s redundant. A graphic designer is the Swiss Army knife of media professionals. We need to have a working knowledge of published, printed, and digital media and that encompasses a lot of stuff. Typesetting, illustration, user interfaces, web design, production & rendering methods, communications, plus keeping up with changing trends and social & cultural norms just to give a broad perspective of our day–to–day responsibilities.
I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let’s travel back to the very early start of the 21st century when I was still in school. I’ll give a more detailed account another time, but in short, I was enrolled in a trade school for graphic art and design at the corporately named Brick Computer Science Institute. We were finishing up our class for Adobe InDesign (which is a desktop publishing and page layout design software program) when the instructor decided to kill two birds with one stone for our final project assignment. We had to design a “How To” book based on any subject we wanted, then present this instruction manual to our classmates to clumsily complete our public speaking portion of the curriculum. At the time, I was heavily involved in puppetry, even working in local productions, so my “thesis” was how to perform a puppet. The whole farce was good enough to elicit a lot of questions afterwards from my fellow classmates. The one that hit me harder than anything else, and one I still think about today (hence this entire post), was when a kid asked, “(Regarding puppetry) How do you get involved in something like this?” I started by stating rather matter–of–factly that it is similar to any other creative endeavor one might be interested in like dancing or painting. So I asked the class, “Has anyone ever taken singing lessons or gone to an acting camp?” Silence. “Okay, what about figure drawing, sculpting, or even writing short stories?” Heads shook whilst still fixating on me with deadpan stares. I took a breath and went out on a limb convinced I’d get a a tiny bite when I sheepishly asked, “Has anyone here ever tried to do anything creative?” In a mumble from a now awkward choir, the collective replied, “No.” My head began to spin and I have almost no memory of what happened after. I just felt so dizzy wondering how so many kids without even an inkling of desire to be creative in any way had all enrolled in a program with “art” in its title. Was I going into the right field? Was I going to have a leg up of any kind because I could draw? Was I completely off about what I assumed graphic design to be?
My brief stint as a puppeteer in 1999 and then again only slightly better in 2016.
Maybe it’s not a huge surprise, but of the nearly 60 kids who enrolled, myself and one other student were the only two to graduate from our class. Everyone else dropped out. The institutional credibility of the school notwithstanding, I had placed all my eggs in this basket and headed out into the world afterwards as a green but still hopeful and determined graphic designer. My first job at a flatware company however proved the unimaginative dropouts may have been the majority as nothing I did required an ounce of creativity. My job was to be imitative and unoriginal by simply copying the designs of our competitors so that the work could then be outsourced to our manufacturer in China. One day I decided to take initiative by designing my own line of tableware for the company, fully understanding the Employment Agreement I signed had a strict statement of ownership that any ideas would belong to the company. My boss was visibly very upset at this ambitious move towards his good graces and gave me a real dressing down. One week later I was let go. Two years later I saw my designed tableware from the company on full display on an end cap at Target.
Now very depressing allusions to the life of a graphic designer aside, my story is not uncommon, and it can be justified repeatedly simply by looking at the world around you steeped in really bad graphic design. Graphic design runs along a very substantial bell curve because it’s one of those industries where anyone can—and does—label themselves a “graphic designer” just for owning an outdated, bootleg copy of Photoshop. Every time—and I mean every single time—I see really spectacularly bad design, I wonder if it may have been done by one of my dropout classmates who decided they didn’t need the student loan debt or color theory from good old BCSI and ventured into their own stint as a “graphic designer.” I think of those blank faces staring back at me who openly admit they had, nor would have, any creative interests at all and wonder how widespread that idea may be. It begs the question, do you have to be creative to be a graphic designer?
If you’re asking me, then the answer is obviously and unequivocally yes, but we can be a bit more diplomatic here. I reached out to a bunch of designers whom I admire to get their take on this idea. A lot of them were busy with deadlines and couldn’t contribute (again, the life of a graphic designer), but I cast a large net and spoke with both professional actual real life graphic designers as well as those who successfully manage things on the side as freelancers. There’s a wide range of education and experience here, but all are people I consider talented so I posed the question directly to get their take on this idea of if it’s even necessary to be creative in order to be a graphic designer. Also understanding deadlines and client specifications, I asked them to consider how much of their drive is motivated by inspiration verses profit, art verses functionality, and if they are moved in anyway when seeing good design verses bad design. Here’s what they had to say.
I consider the role of graphic designer most of all as a tool of communication. Anything I produce in that capacity has to send an easily understood message — Read this! Buy that! Being creative doesn't mean having a special sensitivity to taste and aesthetic choices, neither is it a special talent to draw, compose or write a novel — it simply means to effectively use whatever tools at your disposal to get a job done. Problem solving requires creativity. How much does it influence my work? I'd say it's the main ingredient, along with curiosity. One of my professors at SVA used to tell us: "Be informed! Read! Learn! The more you know about the world around you, the better you'll be able to communicate ideas through design." I profoundly agree with that notion.
Even if it’s a project that is conceptually dictated or a simple layout, I can’t function without putting some creative spin on it. I don’t necessarily see myself as an “artist” but more of a creative creator 😂 so I can’t help but try to be creative in my approach to any project.
I’m definitely moved by bad design…moved to hurl. But that doesn’t mean that someone with basic “functional” skills can’t create something pleasing to the eye. My main day job isn’t graphic design, so I feel I can still be motivated by inspiration. It’s still thrilling to start with nothing and end up with a creation.
Doug Berry
Being creative is integral to being a graphic designer. Our role is to take a client’s vision and deliver it in a way that stands out, draws in the desired audience and tells a story. Without creativity, anyone could do what we do. Creativity is what gets both you and your client noticed.
How creative I get depends on the client. They lead everything. For me, creativity begins with listening to and learning from the client. Sometimes they have a very clear idea, but can't quite articulate it. New ideas are born through collaboration of some sort. I try to be more intimate, so I don't bombard them with a gazillion font choices and colors. I'd rather spend that time talking to them about what they really want. That seems to be rare in this business.
Many artists draw a distinction between artistry and craftsmanship. I think that line has always been a blurry one. Beautifully so. No matter what a design evokes in us, it's going to give each viewer a unique experience and that can never be cynically focus–grouped by a client or executive. I see bad design every day on busses and billboards in the city. Truth be told, it gives me more confidence in mine. Oof! Bad kerning is an epidemic. Good design, however, feeds the soul.
To be honest I have taken for granted the idea that “I am creative” hence “I am a graphic designer.” But, as I reflect on this question, I realize I have some doubts about how axiomatic that link is between creator and designer. In many ways, I feel like a painter is creative but a graphic designer, not so much. When asked if I am an artist, I frequently hesitate and my husband always jumps in to say, “You are an artist.”
I am a formally trained artist, there I said it. I attended the School of Visual Arts, but ultimately picked a marketable art form, graphic design. To be fair, as I dove into the art of graphic design I truly fell in love with letter form, typography, grids – an almost mathematical (I always liked math) approach to art. The experience of the reader, the audience, the consumer of my design is always foremost in my mind. I constantly ask myself and my colleagues: will the message be clear? Will the design entice the viewer to consume the content on offer?
Graphic design is most certainly an art form. Look around and one will see design that does not clearly and creatively inform a viewer. Leading and kerning (what a nerd) that seems somehow “off,” making the message hard to discern. Good design is marked by answering the question: why? The answer should never be – it looks cool. The why may not always be the right way to go, but diving into the why is where the creativity lies. It is from “the why” that one builds the design.
Fundamentally, graphic design taught me that creativity is where you find it. I was at heart a photographer, but chose my profession to make a living in the arts. Now I realize, it was perhaps the most creative choice I ever made; seeing how to make the functional beautiful and the seemingly mundane eye–catching. Graphic design, while seemingly all about utility and “marketability” contributes a great deal to our cultural aesthetic and I am proud to be a creative professional that does that.
So in the end, the answer is not a definitive yes or no. On the one hand, this is a job and it has to get done if we want to keep the lights on. Clients can be fickle and stubborn and we’ve all created things we’re not proud of. Not everything has to go in the portfolio, but I find this to be rare as most people (clients) are hiring you because they like what you do and trust you to do it well. Granted, things like budgets, personal tastes, changing trends, and omnipotent deadlines can hamper these things and make even the greatest designers add to the pantheon of bad design. On the other hand though, it’s impossible to not admire really good graphic design. For me personally, I see some designers as master artists like Aaron Draplin, Martina Flor, Jed Chisholm, Krill Richert, Demas Rusli, or Gary Percival.
I think this is what tips this idea to an extreme; drawing a direct line between “graphic design” to its more definitively creative based cousin: “art.” We admire good graphic design like we admire good art; ergo graphic design is art, art is creative, therefore graphic design must be creative, right? Dain Walker prefers the title “brand strategist” to graphic designer, but at this point I’m splitting so many semantical hairs I think it’s better to just get to his point. He writes,
"In the minds of business owners, creative design can often be misunderstood as functioning alike art. However there are some important distinctions that must be understood between art & design. First allow me to express that they share things in common, often times they can even overlap or one piece could be both art & design all at once. Many even argue they are the same thing… That design is not art, but a very pointed item created with an objective rather than being subjective, essentially art sends a different message to everyone (pending their interpretation) whereas design tells the same message to everyone."
He goes on to make very broad but effective points like, “Art is to be admired, design has a job to do.” Noting that both art and design can be interchangeable, there’s most certainly two different languages an artist and designer have to speak fluently, that of a creative and that of the client. So effectively we live in a world where both of these are very true and open to a lot of interpretation. We know that graphic design can exist without any creativity because it’s literally everywhere. Whether it’s actual bad design or serves only the purpose of functionality, there is a lot of demand for uncreative graphic design. However, and this is the real silver lining, graphic design—good graphic design—aspires to be so much more.
Just like the work of all the very wonderful people who contributed to this post! Very special thanks to Doug Berry, Jamie Carroll, Lea La Notte Greene, Christine Senak, and Mabel Zorzano for taking the time to reflect on this idea and write me their thoughts. Please check out their stuff and as always, I would love if you followed me on Instagram & Twitter.