A few remarks on the subject, from the point of view of someone who has been to Art School and back, then back again, and in the meantime known a few workplaces.
In my 1st incarnation at the then-Arts School, now Faculty of Fine-Arts, 25 years ago, the course I signed up for was already called "Communication Design," though most of what we did was graphic design. There was an excellent photography class and a terrible video class (which usually had like 5 students tops). This was in the pre-historic era of pre-internet. Apple was about to release the Mac LC. (And Illustrator probably had yet to have a color palette.)
The powers that be (were?) had already had the insight that "graphic" would be too much of a constraint, because the focus was on a "bigger picture" that might involve many different media. And people coming out of that school/faculty have been involved in many different things, from editorial design to illustration, to video games, to advertising, multimedia, etc.
However, it is interesting to notice that people coming out of those courses describe themselves as "graphic designers"...
Despite nomenclatures, I think that "Graphic Design" should always be considered the kernel of "Communication Design," mainly because:
1. There is such a thing as a "graphic language," which has a very different tone from other visual languages and which is in itself paramount to most visual communication for a number of reasons.
2. From a very pragmatic point of view, if you don't have a "Graphic Design" background, you probably don't have the skills and the required sensibility to properly deal with type, AND to manage to lay it out with other "Graphical" elements. I've seen people with college degrees in web design and it's plain to see they are lacking in this particular aspect.
3. For financial reasons, colleges have to diversify and there are nowadays media schools that used to train writers and journalists that started to expand into other media, and now we have "web designers" and "UX BSsers" in design consultancies and ad agencies that have been trained in this sort of college. I'm talking about people who had Latin and German classes (of which all they remember now is, respectively, "etcetera" and "Jägermeister") and no classes whatsoever about typography or art history, or even color theory. These schools/faculties usually are called "Communication" schools in countries like my own (in this context, "mass media" is usually referred to as "social communication").
In short, I simply have these two contradictory remarks:
1. On one hand, "graphic" can be too constraining from a branding point of view, because people see us as designers "for print".
2. On the other hand, "graphic" is a unique and differentiating factor, and graphic designers should be mindful of their skills as "communicators who use graphic language" which is something that (I think) will tend to become scarce in this world of three-year-bachelors-of-web-powerpoint-wordpress-design.
Best regards,
==================================
Carlos Pires
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Design & New Media MFA // Communication Design PhD Student @ FBA-UL
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On 25/09/2014, at 21:23, Robert Harland wrote:
> Mike
>
> In your response to David you explained at length reasons for name change,
> and I agree with you that change should drive name change. It sounds as if
> you are embarking on this at UoC, and I recognise it takes time, perhaps
> as mush as 510 years for change to happen. I interpreted what you said as
> Graphic Design becoming Communication Design, but as you suggest, it's not
> so clear cut, and I understand the reasons why.
>
> The thread initially began with a discussion about differentiation between
> Graphic Design and Communication Design, and I argued that to assume one
> is replacing the other may not be appropriate. I don't see it as a
> universally accepted view. I'm not alone in concerns about name change and
> other Graphic Design researchers have expressed doubts about the integrity
> of re-badging exercises.
>
> For example, back in 2008, Linda Fu raised the issue of substitution (if I
> can call it that for a moment) at the New Views 2 conference in London.
> She suggested this is largely a switch in name only, without any real
> implication about what this might mean in terms of difference, or the
> Œgap¹ between the terms that needs to be Œdebated, realised and bridged¹.
> In her abstract she stated:
>
> Š the simplistic graphic design-visual communication equation is
> problematic to the appreciation and progression of our [graphic design]
> profession, because it can cloud our vision, mission and judgement. By its
> very nature, visual communication involves a wider territory (both
> theoretically and disciplinary) and therefore represents greater
> challenges to the traditional boundary of graphic design. (2008: 31, New
> Views 2 abstracts booklet)
>
> David makes a good job of explaining why in his article.
>
> I think you're asking why name change is a danger to history. I don't
> necessarily think it is. You go on to say that Meggs history could evolve
> into the Communication Design. It could. But that assumes Graphic Design
> is not continuing to write new histories for itself: there is still much
> to be written and much new work to be written about.
>
> My argument is that Graphic Design continues to evolve (even as the next
> small thing) but is not "transitioning" into something else. That suggests
> it is ceasing to exist, which I don't believe to be the case and is why
> it's a potentially "damaging" assumption. This is not to say new practices
> are not emerging, such as Communication Design, perhaps with its history
> yet be written from a visual/graphic perspective. That will be a
> Communication Design history. But I don't see enough evidence to suggest
> that Graphic Design is wholly morphing into Communication Design, and am
> not convinced by documents such as the Icograda manifesto as proof. For
> example, some of the essays simply call for an expansion of graphic
> design's concerns, into what I presume will result in new histories.
>
> I can see how Communication Design might draw from Graphic Design history,
> even subsume it, or vice-versa, as the case may be. I just think we need
> to be distinct when we discuss the two fields because one has an
> established history which has been written on behalf of past, current and
> future generations, and one does not, yet. I'm pretty clear that the
> Graphic Design history which has been written is not a history of
> Communication Design.
>
> If I teach Graphic Design, it helps me, and I presume students and
> academics outside the field who research Graphic Design if there is a
> clearly defined canon not called something else. And I don't expect
> Graphic Design history to tell me all there is to know about typography,
> or illustration, or photography, or printing, or whatever else. I will
> look more deeply into their histories for that.
>
> I initially proposed the thread header as Graphic Design as Communication
> Design. It may be better called Graphic Design in Communication Design.
>
> Regards
>
> Robert
>
> Robert Harland
> School of Arts, English and Drama
> Loughborough University
>
>
>
>
>
> On 25/09/2014 18:00, "Paul Mike Zender" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Robert:
>>
>> <snip>
>
>> I did not comment in my response to David but perhaps should have, I
>> don't see why a name change requires us to abandon a century's work?
>> Meggs history would still describe the foundations of communication
>> design, a name change would just have the next edition say "Communication
>> Design" on the cover. David's description of graphic design process will
>> still apply, it will just be the communication design process, which I
>> interpret him to say 'graphic design' education only did partially anyway
>> and that a "communicative design" design discipline might cover more
>> fully.
>>
>> Perhaps you and/or David can explain what a name change is a danger to
>> history and process and not just a new, more comprehensive label.
>>
>> I tried to say before but perhaps did not say simply enough that I think
>> change drives name more than name drives change.
>>
>> BestŠ
>>
>> Mike Zender
>> University of Cincinnati
>> Editor, Visible Language
>>
>>
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