Employing the same
smugness and finality as our hypothetical
speaker above, I could wave off the term by simply stating
that graphic design is the use of
images and text to communicate
information.
Unfortunately, this definition makes
the graphic designer sound like
little more than a professional
collage artist. (Not that there’s
anything wrong with professional
collage artists.) It doesn’t get at the
enormous complexity of book layout
or the murky gray areas where
illustration and typography mingle.
It doesn’t say anything about the
importance of color theory or hint
at the countless layers of meaning
that any part-time semiotician can
derive from the seemingly simple
shapes of a logo or typeface.
Taking a cue from semiotics,
maybe graphic design could be
defined as the creation of signs,
in the semiotical sense of that
word. But then that’s too broad,
too encompassing. It waters down
the discipline, putting my Uncle
Herbert’s bungled PowerPoint presentations
on the same conceptual
footing as Paul Rand’s portfolio.
Perhaps that glaring inequality can
best be summed up in two words:
Comic Sans.
Instead of wrestling endlessly with
what graphic design is or isn’t, let’s
agree that it resists clear definition.
Let’s agree that we generally
know graphic design when we see
it, and that, in fact, it’s probably
better to not put too fine a point
on it, lest we miss something new
and exciting burgeoning on the
periphery.
The same goes for animation. The
easy definition: animation is the
sequencing of imagery to produce
the illusion of motion. And now I’m
sighing at what I just wrote. (I’m
sure many of you are doing much
worse.) While technically true, animation
is a full-blown art form unto
itself, encompassing everything
from clay model stop-motion to
photorealistic computer generated
imagery. But in an attempt to
include all the countless variations
of animation, we must reach for
a nebulous definition to provide
some sort of foundation, however
shaky and prone to cracking it
might be.
Again, we’ve got a slippery one on
our hands. So let’s settle on not
settling.