Intelligent Design for Communication

Observations on today’s role of graphic design and business communications

We have been observing the blurring on the roles of Art and Graphic Design in today’s graphic designers. There have been many arguments on which is more important and what role should a graphic designer play to evolve as a professional. Should the aesthetic value of the finished project be the key indicator of performance or the effectiveness of the finished project to be valued higher?

Most designers gauge their own performance by the aesthetics value and they strongly believe in breaking boundaries to create something of their own. Only this way would they feel appreciated and respected as a top notch professional designer. There would be a smaller group who would put their client’s interest above their own and feel satisfied by communicating ideas effectively through their designs.

Both types of designers are important to execute beautiful and effective design, so which is more important? In this article, we will explore the various key components to help facilitate your conclusion.


Differences of Art and Graphic Design

Art is basically an expression of an artist, while Graphic Design’s primary role is to translate ideas through visuals effectively for commercial communication.
Art is created primarily to entertain people, through thought provoking works, humor, surprises and emotions. Whereas Graphic Design is focused on selling a product, create brand presence, communicate brand values and ideas. The different intentions are one of the key components in their differences.

The value of the individual discipline has its differences too. Art is valued by the quality of itself and its creator but Graphic Design is valued through its effectiveness to sell an idea or product. If Art does not entertain it does not achieve its purpose and becomes valueless, if Graphic Design does not sell an idea or product but entertains, it becomes Art. When most of the graphic design works does not perform effectively, designers become a bunch of artists whom just seeks to entertain through their works and that’s not the function of a design agency.

You may try a simple experiment by asking yourself the following question honestly. Before you start a design project, do you ask yourself ‘How’ first or ‘What’? If you are asking yourself ‘How would the end product look like?’, you are in the Artist category but if you ask yourself ‘What can I do to help my client achieve their objectives?’, congratulations you are in the Graphic Designer category and you may be a 100 times more effective than many designers in the market.


Conclusion

A communication design agency’s role is primarily to help clients in their business communication; therefore there is always the economical factor in the picture. Whether Art or Design is more important, it really depends on the intent/purpose and value to be created for the various design projects. Great artwork and graphic design could co-exist to entertain and sell at the same time but designers have to be very clear with what they plan to do and what they are seeking to achieve. The client’s interest has to be the top priority over the designer’s self interest to create beautiful artwork. This is what ‘Intelligent Design’ is about and 1 picto design is proud to work with a group of highly rationale graphic designers. They would always put their client’s interest first and they work hard to provide intelligent design solutions for our client’s complex design problems.