Is graphic design for those with artistic talent, or can it be learned and improved on with practice? I work in publishing chasing writers, copyediting and laying out books in InDesign but since I began doing this for my company’s magazines I’ve fallen in love with them. I want to be part of the design for the magazines and pivot away from the editorial/production side of the business but I fear I have no artistic talent and it would just be a waste of time.I know what I like and don’t like but is that plus practice enough? Must you have that natural artistic talent to succeed in designing books and magazines? I guess this could be generally discussed about graphic design as a whole, too. Did any of you suck at drawing/handwriting but now can make beautiful designs?
there are lots of ways into this discussion, but it seems your major question is: is art/design/having an eye/having taste a 'talent' (ie magic) or is it education?while a lot of people swear by talent - there is no talent that did not constantly play and practice and study and create. often 'talents' come from highly cultured environments. so its kinda a false dichotomy.the other problem is the inconsistency of arts teaching. someone is gonna say graphic design is all about visual hierarchy and clarity and serving the message and isnt art at all yadda yadda... sure some of that is often true, but fuck it, there is space to invent and space to be free.imho, in short, of course you can learn. you need good sources, good teachers if you can, tough real feedback and criticism, and long deep dives into history. time to practice and experiment.taste is cultivated. having an eye is learned, having a good hand is somewhere inbetween.
>>464710not OP. luv what you wroteI will add aimless ideas into the discussion, hoping that it will continue:)-definitions kinda rely on their parts (=epistemology?)1) simple "common knowledge" [aristotelian?] approach:>gd is the study and practice [efficient cause]>of communicating implicit messages (mostly affiliation?) *ideally* [formal cause]>through 'visual means' [material cause],>in order to guide viewers attention to explicit information, which has been kept in the process [telos].2) [semiotics]:>gd is the practice of constructing a sign-system>where the signifier (color, typography, layout, image) is deliberately shaped to produce>a signified (status, urgency, trust, belonging) in excess of the literal content>so that the viewer reads two messages at once, one denotative ("here is the info") and one connotative ("here is who this is for, and what it means to want it")3) synthesis (plus info and game theory,...):>gd is a practice of spending visible resources on shaping a channel (layout, page, screen)>by exploiting evo-inherited perceptual biases (symmetry-detection, contrast-sensitivity, facial recognition, novelty-seeking) so that>a salient signal (*explicit* content) travels>alongside a second, denser signal (*implicit* affiliation/status/vibe) — both encoded through the same visual means —>such that they survive transmission through noise (competing visual stimuli, viewer distraction, cultural mismatch) and that the right receiver decodes both at the highest possible fidelity per unit of viewer attention spent.>effort spent on one signal is never separable from effort spent on the other,>leading to a resulting credibility signal of the sender's competence. bad design is cheap to fake, good design works because it's hard to fake.>therefore naturalizing values (aspiration, consumption, hierarchy, class) by embedding them in neutral objects,>making the invisibility of the ideological the design's main achievement
>>464713pic related is a good jokei dont disagree with anything you wrote. dig philosophy, semiotics...but in the end i advocate for visual art as visual. Not to exclude everything else, but because everything else wants to exclude the visual.
>>464726thanks! to be fair, mentioning "through visual means" more often than once in a message of 2000 characters max seemed redundant without real benefit. ;)what do you mean>everything wants to exclude the visual???
>>464727>to be fair, mentioning "through visual means" more often than once in a message of 2000 characters max seemed redundant without real benefitid disagree1) 'visual' is mentioned solely as a moment of an 'aristotelian' construction2)semiotics really reduces the signified to nothing. its almost anit visual3)'visible resources' nor "evo-perceptual biases' is not the same as being profoundly aware of the visualyou really barely mentioned it at all. thats ok. you do you.
>>464729haha is this still about contributing something to a discussion, or are you just trying to be annoying? :Dkinda seems like one way of saying that you are unable to hold the content of 3 paragraphs in your head before committing to an answer(?).but either way; >you certainly do you! ;)okay then.so in your (persnickety) opinion, the act of making a tactile infoboard for blind people BY DEFINITION has to be excluded from falling into the domain of gd, as it is clearly about constructing a non-visual channel.how interesting!personally I would probably argue that "graphic design" is itself a *slightly* parochial name for a bigger discipline that's really about designing perceptual accessibility to structure, and vision-based work is just the (very) dominant, historically-first case. in a way my examples like typography, layout, image seem even more fundamental to gd than vision itself? also I am still very interested in what you had in mind when declaring that>everything wants to exclude the visual.I understand, that redundantly repeating the question will finally make it stand out to you!
>>464733>:Demojis dont mean your arent being an annoying cunt :D
>>464734no, they mean I openly enjoy being an annoying cunt when others are being one as well ;)
>>464735yeah, not really into your choice of modes.i politely said i didnt agree with you, regarding your intro premisethen i politely and briefly noted other disagreements in each of your items. youre welcome to address them specifically, per having an actual dialogue vs whatever you are doing presently.just because there are blind people doesnt mean painters shouldnt paint and advocate for its potential and power.but yes, i was not considering the widest net and broadest set of environmental and informational design. its great to see some tactile design. all for it. that you need to turn to the tactile as a general counterargument to me tho is kinda the point. people do semiotics, do signs, do models for hands, but are ignorant of straight visual art. thats all ive got to say. enjoy your game theory.id love to design some tactile environmental guides and some artworks. and then I would be advocating for the tactile, as opposed to semiotics, or signs, or game theory. et al.you do you :D
>>464736>painters shouldn't paintwho tf said something like that? arguing that gd *can be defined* in a way that precedes existence of the visual somehow makes me deny vision to be an important modality for communication?? :Dyou are telling me that the object in the expo picrel is NOT also graphic design (even when you disregard the purely visual features like color)? by your understanding knowledge about layout, hierarchy, structure are NOT coming from the *study and practice of gd*?! lofl>other disagreements1) I define vision as being a whole quarter of what makes the aristotelian framework (namely the material cause)2) correct, the *signified* is NOT visual, but tends to be delivered through mostly visual *signifiers*3) not to mention I even stated "both encoded through the same visual means" in that exact definition, my bruv>ignorant of straight visual art. thats all ive got to say. who is ignorant of straight visual art? they even made the board-for-blind-people visually appealing as to not pollute the space for those with a pair of working eyes.(?)we do us ;)
>>464737>a whole quarterthats a joke, right?>signifiers dont matter. the difference between them matters. they can be ghastly and ugly and whatever the fuck. irrelevant. signifiers dont rely on positive visual qualities, just differences.again, the weird turn to your "board"you do you, you aint us. its ok.
>>464739yes. a quarter.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes>signifiersexactly. for that reason new trends and fashions tend to start out as something "ugly", until their signified shapes into something that is considered desirable, retroactively turning the ugly attractive...>continuously weird turnand *conveniently* you continue trying to avoid actively interacting with itwell, I gladly do me instead of us! :)
