I am a Communications Designer
While much of what we do as Communication Designers still involves aesthetic choices and artistic skills (craft), our professional practice revolves around a message-driven design discipline that involves research, learning, concept development, structuring and presentation of messages designed to facilitate better understanding within an audience.
A fascinating post at We’re Not Wired Right. I’ve often had difficulty describing what I do as a graphic designer, and honestly, I don’t think this is going to help much. The change is past due however. Graphic design isn’t what it used to be. The field has expanded so much that most of what we do isn’t covered by the term any more. Communications designer is the new term being used by people in this field to encompass what graphic design has turned into.
For now my business cards will still say graphic designer. When people ask what I do, I’ll probably still say graphic design. From this point forward however, I am a Communications Designer.
Agreed, it takes much more than artistic design, to get the whole point of a website across. It takes deep thought about what the client is really trying to display!
Comment by Lee — March 27, 2007 @ 9:26 am
You have stirred up a worm’s nest of iron hornets here, my friend.
Most graphic designers I have known and worked with Hate Words. They don’t care to communicate diddly squat. They just want a pretty picture. Words are clutter to them, ugly little ink scribbles that wreck the picture, the total visual effect thought, wrongly, to be the goal.
In most web sites, you want action. You want to sell or explain or motivate. You are not just showing nice pictures and pretty colors and fantastic design (so-called).
But they hate words. They hate text. They have nothing to communicate, but color and form. Or so they seem to think, judging by their actions and by conversations with them on projects.
Lite blue text on medium blue backgrounds, they abound.
Low or no contrast is the curse of designers everywhere.
Comment by spyderblog aka vaspers the grate — April 13, 2007 @ 2:25 pm