Dietmar R. Winkler
Design Practitioner and Educator

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

MIT Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Wednesday, January 9, 2018

A distinct nomenclature change…
a name does not change behaviors…
things are what they are…

Graphic Arts

is a term that is used by the printing industry. Here the concept of “arts” does not relate to what we understand as significant cultural or aesthetic contributions, which we might find in a museum or gallery. Graphic Arts defines the specific reproduction processes from aquatint to drypoint, etching, line engraving, lithography, mezzotint, monoprint, and serigraphy, as well as the technological construction and processing of calligraphy, photography, typography, computer graphics, and bindery.

Commercial Art

is a prevailing term in the US, before the nomenclature of “graphic design” was adopted by the majority of design studios. It describes a variety of creative services for creating objects and images for commercial purposes, primarily advertising, book design, advertisements of different products, signs, posters, and other displays to promote sales of products, and promoting services, ideological concepts, and ideas.

Terms in German Language (Austria, Germany and Switzerland):

1
Grafische Gestaltung = Graphic Design

2
Gebrauchsgrafiker = Graphic Designer(s)
Grafiker = sometimes Printmaker (both use the same tools)

The language makes, at most, a distinction between Graphic Design and Printmaking. In Germany, there was never an ideological separation between “fine” and “applied” arts—perhaps due to a long tradition of the “Gesamtkunstwerk,” a mid-century concept of the 1800s that translates into English as the following: “total work of art,” “ideal work of art,” “universal artwork,” “synthesis of the arts,” “comprehensive artwork,” “all-embracing art form,” or “total artwork.” The history of the Bauhaus will bear that out, especially because of its original founder, Henry Van de Velde, who was a Belgium Art Nouveau architect, painter, interior, and (early) industrial designer.

I am not sure about German traditions, but I know that Swiss designers Max Bill, Karl Gerstner, Gottfried Honegger, Richard Lohse, and many others, made no value separations between “fine art” and “applied art.” They pursued both, with equal gusto, commitment and interests.

It is my belief that in the USA the rigid dichotomy between “fine art” and “applied art” is a semantic problem, unfortunately precipitated by “designers” who want a clear separation from “commercial art.” There were always qualified and less informed.

US Commercial Art/Artist
vs.
Grafiker/Gebrauchsgrafiker = Designer/Graphic Designer

It is the scope of functions that determine the differences between “design” and “commercial art.”

Before graphic design coalesced in the US into the now much more uniform and disciplined design practice of today, with its demands for extensive knowledge in communication, demographics, marketing, and media choice, the talents of a “commercial artist,” even though their skill-set could have been much more extensive, were selected primarily for the purpose of making or constructing objects and images, namely for their unique hand skills and abilities to manipulate color and materials.

Art directors provided strict conceptual guidance, which the commercial artists had to follow very closely. All other responsibilities then were taken over by the production departments of book publishers and advertising agencies, like the choice of paper, binding, source for printing, and type composition. (Today, many design/art directors are basically just art buyers, Harvard Business School graduates, at the most, are able to select a style, approach, or attitude, which has been proven to be successful.)

The function of a typical “design studio” evolved through the suddenly emerging requirements for agencies to expand territories and services, namely to create tertiary materials, what was called “the collateral,” namely flyers, booklets, posters, and “point of sale” items. Until then, agencies had concentrated on newspaper and journal advertising and television commercials. The collateral material was outsourced to commercial artists. When annual reports became a fad in the corporate posturing of success, or clients requested the systemic shaping of large corporate identities, or complex product identities were required, agencies did not have the right skill-sets or creative personnel and so the first design studios emerged. It is only within the last decades that advertising agencies have pulled the portion of collateral material back into their own operation, mostly because design studios have very little true knowledge of marketing, which is the traditional strength and expertise of advertising agencies.

SIDEBAR:

Facts

The arbitrary change of the nomenclature from “commercial art” to “graphic design” in no way changed the reality that, of the estimated 266,300 US design professionals (made up of about 65% women, 35% men), only a very minuscule portion hold advanced degrees.

Although it is true that some of the larger design studios are involved in research to advance understanding of issues in marketing, global communication, and psychology, the fact is that the majority of design practitioners continue to ignore and actually disdain research. A review of the design literature still shows an emphasis on hero worship rather than on helpful exposés of how certain attitudes create better and more reliable communication.

Also, most studios are not well enough staffed to free up personnel for long-term committed research. That is why now under the nomemclature change to “graphic design,” one can find the usual quality spectrum: 20 highly educated and committed designers are looking for ways to expand territorial responsibilities; about 30 percent function responsibly; but then the figures drop very quickly, with the largest group, functioning pretty much on the level of traditional “commercial art.”

Talk is cheap. One has to walk the talk.

Present Day Professional Needs

Now, in addition to conceptual sensibilities and vision, and capabilities for crafting objects and images through observation, in my view, designers must also be able to grasp the economic, social, and cultural significance of a problem to find appropriate and constructive solutions. In general, the significance of design work emerges when a designer is aware of the fact that anything can either advance the sophistication of a culture or trivializes it. This means that designers should have expertise based on knowledge in social anthropology, psychology, and linguistics as well as history. It is clear that when times have become more complex, the commercial artist’s skill-set, even if singular, cannot match those of a design studio or design group, in which all share responsibilities for shaping constructive solutions—research, marketing, shaping text, and images. In addition, designers must have extensive technical knowledge of the many reproduction processes to assure the highest levels of fidelity when matching possibilities and limitations.

Fear of Losing Important Skills

Although most of my colleagues would disagree with me, I believe emphatically in observation of the natural environment. Most contemporary designers can no longer capture what they see or experience through drawing. Nationwide, design schools no longer encourage drawing skills. Drawing is the only way in which visual perceptions are physically recorded, not just collected in the mind like photographic images, but in the part in the brain that controls the unconscious and automatic of the body and builds the intuitive. It the oldest of learning devices, which from childhood on teach through eye, muscle, and muscle tensions. Very few designers are able to craft original images outside photography. They have become technocratic typographers, leaving a square of space open for a photograph. Not only that, it is scary to see the human tactile sense systematically neglected. Designers have lost their tactile sense and skill to communicate with it.

Also, because in some programs there are no literature requirements, the designers’ abilities to evolve new metaphors are seriously impaired. Only through experiences with contemporary literature and the music of an epoch is it possible to understand how to shape visual interpretations with metaphors that accurately represent the times. 

One thing is very clear, a designer who wants to relate to the culture of this moment in time must be better educated than the regular public, beyond fad and media buzz. MIT’s OpenCourseWare as an example, provides every citizen with free online course materials, for exposure to the knowledge of many disciplines. This alone expands the designer’s challenges.