Communication, Visual, Design

As I constantly try to refine the definition of “graphic design” for myself and for my career—because the phrase is becoming more and more vague these days—I recently came up with a more specific phrase to describe what I (want to) do: Communication and Visual Design.

The Reasoning

Over the past few months, I’ve learned more about design by myself via the design blogosphere and podcastland and sans the individual biases and influences of my design friends, I realize that I’m really interested in information design. I mean, I kind of already knew that in school, when I saw and fell in love with Josef Müller-Brockmann’s work. He used only data (information) and turned them into pieces of design that emitted its own formal aesthetic radiance, which completely fascinates me and causes me to ecstasize in the multiplicative product of pure simplicity and beauty—it’s the ultimate, perfect design, at least where communication is concerned.

These days, information graphic design seems to have more exposure in the mainstream, especially online, where data visualization has grown beyond bar graphs and pie charts. The advances in programming and data analysis yields infographics that exhibit three-dimensional displays, millions-hue color gradation, viewer interaction, and/or continuous construction of visualization through live import of data from all over the world, all the while still presenting the original information collected.

That is very exciting. Pure and initially styleless data have a chance to shine now. I cringe when I see too much “pretty” design for the sake of audience attraction and for the sake of being “pretty.” However, I don’t want that part of design to completely disappear, because it’s part of aesthetics, and we need aesthetics. I don’t want to look at tables of black-ink data on bleach-white paper or screen for the rest of my life. Style is important in playing a role to enhance the experience of reading the data. Colors, shapes, photographs, and illustrations can fill that role.

So there originated my defense for coining “Communication and visual design.” I am aware that it’s similar to the emphasis of my major in Davis, “Visual Communication (and Presentation),” but that phrase is not specific enough. Also, it doesn’t say “design”; I don’t want people to get more confused when I tell them I’m a “visual communicator.” I want something that says that I (want to) do communication design, and I (want to) do visual design (which is the aesthetics).

Now, I looked up both terms on Wikipedia (I know it’s not completely a legitimate source, but it’s not about the exact definition), and “Communication design” came up, but “Visual design” didn’t. Communication design was basically said to be similar to graphic design, except it involves more of the message, or the information.

Since I want to participate in both areas of design, and that I value the communication and information part more, I put that term first: Communication and Visual Design. Of course, I’ll still tell people I’m a graphic designer because it’s easier to tell people, but on websites and identity stuff and what not, I want to use “Communication and Visual Design,” at least for this point in my career.

Topic Revisited

While thinking about this topic, I remember that I had two discussions (one on No Name Designers Guild and one on The Collablog) with my design friends earlier this year when Bruce Nussbaum wrote a Businessweek article bashing designers, and I reacted with a claim that maybe he misunderstood the word “design,” which was not surprising since the word’s being thrown around constantly these days. So I suggested calling ourselves something else, something other than “designers.” However, I ended up with a combination of both the clarification and the existing word: “visual communication designers.”

The controversy of this whole shabub (I know, I just made it up) probably won’t go anywhere beyond this blog, but I’m doing this for my own sanity so I know what I do for a living exactly. I know that “communication” and “visual” are just as confusing as “graphic,” so replacing one confusing word with two isn’t that economical and efficient. At least I’ve split up that one word into two manageable categories: data and style, allowing me to get a clearer picture of what I’m for (lots of data with appropriate style) and what I’m not for (lots of fluff and little substance), which ironically is probably the quality of this post.

Flush.

100 Pieces and a Star

Last night was probably the first time where I went to an AIGA event without any of my design friends. I went to the 50 Books/50 Covers Opening Reception at Chronicle Books in SF. I went with my friends from home because I don’t think I’m confident enough yet to go by myself to an event which I don’t know anyone. And besides, it’s always nice to just go to an event with someone you know.

The reception was nice; there weren’t any exceptionally great pieces on display. But there was this one children’s book called Art by Patrick McDonnell (who does the comic Mutts) that I really like. It was about a boy named Art and he does many different kinds of art. It was sweet and rhyme-y and I think it’s a good introduction into the arts for kids. And that made me realize that it’s really simple ideas like this that just gets the message across and touches people’s hearts. It’s nice sometimes, I think, to bring out the inner child of the designer and the audience when appropriate.

The reception last night made me realize that 1) there’s so much out there in the design community that I don’t know about and 2) I need to get out there and start learning about it and find out what being a designer means, socially. And the event gave me that chance to get a feel of what it’s like to be in the “design community.”

And I definitely felt that when I saw Eric Heiman from Volume Inc. at the reception. I learned/heard about Eric a year ago in Davis when he came to talk about his work and design in general. His suggestion for design students to work on non-class projects together sparked the formation of The Collab, started by my friend Milan, and a bunch of us Davis kids put together a week-long design/art show last May. So Eric’s probably the first “design stars” whom I’ve seen in person. (More about my wish to see/meet “design stars” in a later entry.) And while he may not be as well known as Michael Bierut or Paula Scher, he is special on my list as one of the people that was there as an influence from the beginning of my design career.

Flush.