Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of design and of the fine arts. Its practice involves creativity, innovation and lateral thinking using manual or digital tools, where it is usual to use text and graphics to communicate visually.
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online content. Desktop publishing software can generate page layouts and produce text and image content comparable to the simpler forms of traditional typography and printing. This technology allows individuals, businesses, and other organizations to self-publish a wide variety of content, from menus to magazines to books, without the expense of commercial printing.
Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms for viewers with the intent of promoting the sale and interest of products, services, and ideas. It relies on the iconic image to enhance recall and favorable recognition for a product or service. An example of a product could be a magazine ad promoting a new soda through complementary colors, a catchy message, and appealing illustrative features. Another example could be promoting the prevention of global warming by encouraging people to walk or ride a bike instead of driving in an eye catching poster. It communicates something specific to an audience.
Prepress is the term used in the printing and publishing industries for the processes and procedures that occur between the creation of a print layout and the final printing. The prepress process includes the preparation of artwork for press, media selection, proofing, quality control checks and the production of printing plates if required. The artwork is quite often provided by the customer as a print-ready PDF file created in desktop publishing.
In film and television, production designer is the individual responsible for the overall aesthetic of the story. The production design gives the viewers a sense of the time period, the plot location, and character actions and feelings. Working directly with the director, cinematographer, and producer, production designers have a key creative role in the creation of motion pictures and television. The term production designer was coined by William Cameron Menzies while he was working on the film Gone with the Wind. Production designers are commonly confused with art directors as the roles have similar responsibilities. Production designers decide the visual concept and deal with the many and varied logistics of filmmaking including, schedules, budgets, and staffing. Art directors manage the process of making the visuals, which is done by concept artists, graphic designers, set designers, costume designers, lighting designers, etc. The production designer and the art director lead a team of individuals to assist with the visual component of the film. Depending on the size of the production the rest of the team can include runners, graphic designers, drafts people, props makers, and set builders. Productions Designers create a framework for the visual aesthetic of a project and work in partnership and collaboration with the Set Decorator & Set Decorating department to execute the desired look.
A video game producer is the top person in charge of overseeing development of a video game.
Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games.
A technical director (TD) is usually a senior technical person within e.g. a software company, engineering firm, film studio, theatre company or television studio. This person usually has the highest level of skill within a specific technical field.
A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional graphics, i.e. produced on a flat surface, today normally paper or a screen on various electronic devices. The term usually refers to the arts that rely more on line, color or tone, especially drawing and the various forms of engraving; it is sometimes understood to refer specifically to drawing and the various printmaking processes, such as line engraving, aquatint, drypoint, etching, mezzotint, monotype, lithography, and screen printing. Graphic art mostly includes calligraphy, photography, painting, typography, computer graphics, and bindery. It also encompasses drawn plans and layouts for interior and architectural designs.
A graphic designer is a professional who practices the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming linguistic messages into graphic manifestations, whether tangible or intangible. They are responsible for planning, designing, projecting, and conveying messages or ideas through visual communication. Graphic design is one of the most in-demand professions with significant job opportunities, as it allows leveraging technological advancements and working online from anywhere in the world.
A creative director is a person who makes high-level creative decisions; oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos; and directs and translates the creative people who produce the end results. Creative director positions are often found within the music, film, video game, fashion, marketing, or entertainment industries, but may be found in other creative organizations such as web development and software development firms as well.
In graphic design, page layout is the arrangement of visual elements on a page. It generally involves organizational principles of composition to achieve specific communication objectives.
The set decorator is the head of the set decoration department in the film and television industry, responsible for selecting, designing, fabricating, and sourcing the "set dressing" elements of each set in a Feature Film, Television, or New Media episode or commercial, in support of the story and characters of the script. The set decorator is responsible for each décor element inside the sets, from practical lighting, technology, art, furniture, drapery, floor coverings, books, collectables, to exterior furnishings such as satellite dishes, Old West water troughs, streetlamps, traffic lights, garden furniture and sculptures.
Graphic art software is a subclass of application software used for graphic design, multimedia development, stylized image development, technical illustration, general image editing, or simply to access graphic files. Art software uses either raster or vector graphic reading and editing methods to create, edit, and view art.
Graphic design careers include creative director, art director, art production manager, brand identity developer, illustrator and layout artist.
In printing, Preflight is the process of confirming that the digital files required for the printing process are all present, valid, correctly formatted, and of the desired type. The basic idea is to prepare the files to make them feasible for the correct process such as offset printing and eliminate costly errors and facilitate a smooth production. It is a standard prepress procedure in the printing industry. The term originates from the preflight checklists used by pilots. The term was first used in a presentation at the Color Connections conference in 1990 by consultant Chuck Weger, and Professor Ron Bertolina was a pioneer for solutions to preflighting in the 1990s.
A desktop publishing artist or artworker is a desktop publishing worker, responsible for translating the work of art directors and graphic designers into digital files ready to go to print or be placed online. A DTP operator is usually skilled in multiple computer design applications, such as Adobe CS.
In color management, an ICC profile is a set of data that characterizes a color input or output device, or a color space, according to standards promulgated by the Interglobal Color Consortium (ICC). Profiles describe the color attributes of a particular device or viewing requirement by defining a mapping between the device source or target color space and a profile connection space (PCS). This PCS is either CIELAB (L*a*b*) or CIEXYZ. Mappings may be specified using tables, to which interpolation is applied, or through a series of parameters for transformations.
A contract proof usually serves as an agreement between customer and printer and as a color reference guide for adjusting the press before the final press run. Most contract proofs are a prepress proof.
Design tools are objects, media, or computer programs, which can be used to design. They may influence the process of production, expression and perception of design ideas and therefore need to be applied skillfully.
