I went out with a friend and fellow designer last night just to catch up on each other’s lives and how we are both doing. It was great to catch up about work and personal lives. We talked about the moments we both knew we should be artists/designers, and where we see ourselves going in the upcoming years. But like all artists do, we got to talking about design as a business and the way other people view it. 

Final decision concluded after the conversation: graphic design as a profession is under appreciated. 

People really don’t take the time to understand what we really do. To them art is art and anyone who uses the tools that we do can design. It’s like paint by number. The thing that people have to realize is that it isn’t the tools that make the artist. A good designer could use the old school Microsoft Publisher (no matter how much it may make us cringe) and come up with a better design than than someone with all the industry standard tools but no concept of what good design is. People don’t question the design of an engineer, because if one thing is off in their work and the whole thing falls apart. It’s true with a design as well. Just because all the information is on a page doesn’t mean that the design will stand up and accomplish what it is suppose to. There is so much that goes on beyond the final product. Everyone thinks that since design programs are so accessible and they can use a filter in Photoshop that they can call themselves a designer. We see our designs like those engineers see theirs, one thing is out of place and the whole thing falls apart. Design is a delicate art; a science if you will. There are rules to adhere to, formulas of good design. Why don’t people understand that graphic design is a separate profession and not “support” for everything else. How do we let people know that we are not here just to, “make things pretty.”

A lot of the time we end up on the backend of projects: making the presentation visually work, assets in already dictated sizes, and cut/paste design. There are so many designers stuck on the outside, not being included in the creative process until others think we are needed. Design makes the world work. We work off hierarchies, trends,  how the human eye see and the brain processes. There is a point to every stroke, circle, piece of type (etc.) and where it is placed to accomplish the ultimate goal. We critique over and over again so we can get things as close to “perfect” as we can. Just like anyone else we take a design from concept to completion; this includes rough sketches, thumbnails, more detailed concepts, initial designs, final designs, and final product. How does that not sound like a detailed process? How are we somehow not worthy of the same overall respect as other professions?

I guess what we have to make sure as artists and designers is that we make sure we are not being under appreciated. We have to make our managers and employers or contract holders see that we are a huge untapped asset; that we don’t become just “graphic support” for everyone else and aren’t establishing ourselves as a force and control of the business world.