Changing canvases: Graphic vs. Advertising Design
“Creativity without strategy is called art, creativity with strategy is called advertising” — Jef I. Richards
Well, if there’s anything that defines what we do in an advertising agency, it is certainly not just one aspect of design. We deal with multiple facets of design thinking. If you’ve been an avid follower of Mad Men, you would very well relate to the words of Bert Cooper on composure — “You’re going to need a stronger stomach if you’re going to be back in the kitchen seeing how the sausage is made.” This deeply speaks about how design, as a process, evolves in an advertising agency from just a smudge on a canvas to a masterpiece. The canvases keep changing from one artist to another, but it all boils down to two key divides — Graphic Design & Advertising Design.
Graphic Design: The Possibilities On A Digital Canvas
In the profession (or art) of visual communication, Graphic Design is the meticulous mastery of using images and words to convey a particular message or an idea to the audience by producing a specific effect. We would deal with the crash course in Graphic Design in our later blogs, but here, the focus would remain on the types of Graphic Design.
Packaging Design — So, if you love Paper Boat drink, only because the package design is cool, you know what it does. It makes the entire elements on a package: the label, sticker, characters appealing enough for you to grab one and keep in your home as a collectible.
Web Design — We often keep talking about the cool websites that we’ve come across and talk about how cool the page is. The transitions, the effects, the icons… everything about the website makes you keep visiting again and again. That’s because the UI/UX Designer has done a great job ensuring that your experience on the website is smooth as a whistle.
Corporate Design: If you just put a tick mark and say “Just Do It”, the first name that’d pop up in your mind would definitely be — NIKE! That’s the corporate identity designed by a Graphic Designer and the tick mark is called a Swoosh. Corporate design deals with creating a brand’s identity.
This leads us to the next type of Graphic Design which has emerged into a bigger entity altogether — Marketing or Advertising Design.
Advertising Design: Every Art Becomes A Masterpiece
In the world of advertising, if the Graphic Designer uses the right elements and right tools to create a particular design, every artwork he/she creates is Mona Lisa, The Starry Night, The Kiss, The Naked Maja…
Technically speaking, advertising design is simply creating marketing designs in print and digital for magazines, newspapers, billboards, brochures, marketing mailers, and so on. The list doesn’t end. The Graphic Designer in advertising would agree to this as they get to create so many adaptations of the same design in different sizes and mediums (sometimes, create new designs for each marketing collateral). Advertising Design is a part of Graphic Design, but unlike the latter, there are a few restrictions for an Advertising Designer –
The Difference in Style — When you look at a painting, you can see the kind of paint that’s used — oil, watercolor, or acrylic. Some artists have gone to an extreme where they’ve used their own blood. Nevertheless, Advertising Design, in a way, curtails the Graphic Designer from becoming Dorian Gray.
The Difference in Priority — Leonardo Da Vinci, reportedly took approximately 12 years to just paint the lips of the Mona Lisa. Well, our clients do not have that much patience nor time because their priorities are set and the Advertising Designer is supposed to create 12 Mona Lisa’s in a week’s time if that’s what it takes.
The Difference in Research Approach — While Graphic Designers get creative freedom in terms of typography, illustrations, icons & vectors, Advertising Design requires a more strategic approach and that’s where the research comes in. What kind of design style suits the brand’s persona, what kind of design elements resonate with the audience, and so on.
At 3 Dots Design, we believe that Graphic Design & Advertising Design have a lot in common and it’s the similarities that bind them together so artistically. We’d like to dedicate this blog to all Graphic Designers who work tooth and nail to ensure that every client’s job is equally a masterpiece of a creative. These Advertising Designers have no dearth of ideas when it comes to meeting or beating a deadline and they make it all seem easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
