Graphic Design Is the Perfect Merging of Art and Technology

Art is an integral part of our culture.  From the cave paintings at Lascaux, to Picasso, to modern graphic design, art has enabled communication to take on a great deal more depth than mere words or images.  And, whether it is a two-dimensional image or a three-dimensional sculpture, technology has been pivotal in helping to advance the artists’ ability to express.

It is quite exciting to see how graphic design is influenced by emerging technology.  Take for instance, designers who use CAD (Computer Assisted Design) programs to create technical drawings for things like architecture or technical schematics.  They can now use technology to “grow” their design from wax resin, so that they can have a scaled down physical copy of the design.  Pretty impressive.

Similarly, most children in this day and age enjoy movies from companies like “Pixar,” who use computers exclusively to make their feature length films.  This was one of the outcomes of graphic design firms who were working on computer software to enable designers to harness the latest innovations in computers. These innovations would permit images to be altered without having to put eraser to paper or abandoning a drawn or painted image.  This has also led to all the amazing website content that is now available on the internet.

And, of course, graphic designers can take cues from artists who draw and paint to add novelty to their designs.  Imagine seeing a giant advertisement that draws on the brilliance of street artist Kurt Wenner, who manipulates perspective to give the illusion of depth in three dimensions.  Advertisers could hire graphic designers to use the manipulation of converging lines to give their ads the ability to deceive the visual sense and instill a sense of awe in anyone who sees the graphic design, while opening up the very ground you walk on to use as ad space.