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Photography & Art
for a visual hungry world
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fLORENCE BIENNALE
NEW MEDIA - STILL
A type of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of art forms. Graphic art is typically two-dimensional and includes photography, drawing, painting, printmaking, lithography, typography, serigraphy (silk-screen printing), and bindery. Graphic art also consists of drawn plans and layouts for interior and architectural designs. Today, graphic art is usually associated with commercial art that is used in marketing. In this case, the purpose of the graphic art is to capture the interest of the audience on the product or service in order to increase the volume of business. ]A type of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of art forms. Graphic art is typically two-dimensional and includes photography, drawing, painting, printmaking, lithography, typography, serigraphy (silk-screen printing), and bindery. Graphic art also consists of drawn plans and layouts for interior and architectural designs.[1] Today, graphic art is usually associated with commercial art that is used in marketing. In this case, the purpose of the graphic art is to capture the interest of the audience on the product or service in order to increase the volume of business.
Throughout history, technological inventions have shaped the development of graphic art. In 2500 BC, the Egyptians used graphic symbols to communicate their thoughts in a written form known as hieroglyphics. The Egyptians wrote and illustrated narratives on rolls of papyrus to share the stories and art with others.
Merchants who often traded with people of different languages realized that by hanging images of the products they sold, they could attract more business. The signs helped traders of different languages quickly recognize the various goods. This is Later in the Middle Ages, scribes manually copied each individual page of the manuscripts to maintain their sacred teachings. The scribes would leave marked sections of the page available for the artists to insert drawings and decorations. The art alongside the carefully lettered text enhanced the religious reading experience.
Johannes Guttenberg invented the printing press in 1440. The printing press facilitated the mass-production of text and graphic art and eventually replaced manual transcriptions altogether.
Again during the Renaissance years, graphic art in the form of printing played a major role in the spreading of Classical learning in Europe. Within these manuscripts, book designers focused heavily on typeface.
Due to the development of larger fonts during the Industrial Revolution, posters became a popular form of graphic art used to communicate the latest information as well as advertise the latest products and services.
The invention and popularity of the television changed graphic art through the additional aspect of motion as advertising agencies attempted to utilize kinetics to their advantage.
The next major change in graphic arts came when the computer was invented in the twentieth century. Powerful computer software enables artists to manipulate images in a much faster and simpler way. With quick calculations, computers easily recolor, scale, rotate, and rearrange images.
[edit]Tools of the trade
Graphic artists applying for positions in today's job market are expected to be familiar with computers and a variety of software in order to create the most appealing, up to date designs.
Graphic art software includes applications such as:
Adobe Illustrator – an application that allows artists to manipulate vector graphics
CorelDRAW – similar to Adobe Illustrator, it is another vector graphic manipulation tool
Adobe Photoshop – a bitmap graphics software including powerful graphics editing tools that provide a large variety of editing functionality
Pagemill – a tool that facilitates the creation of webpages
PhotoImpact – a digital photo editor
Adobe InDesign – desktop publishing software used for layout and design manipulation
QuarkXPress – similar to Adobe InDesign, it is another desktop publishing software tool
Besides computers and software, graphic artists are also expected to be creative with processing camera work, registration, crop marks, and masking.
Careers
One of the most common career paths for a graphic artist today is web design. With the popularity of the World Wide Web, the demand for web designers is immense. Graphic artists utilize their creativity with layouts, typography, and logos to market the client’s business. In addition to creating graphical designs, graphic artists also need to understand hypertext, web programming, and webpage maintenance in order to successfully create a webpage.