What Do You Do in Graphic Design?

Graphic design is a creative field that involves using visuals and text to communicate ideas and messages. It can be used for print and digital media, such as magazines, websites, advertisements, and logos. Graphic design is an ever-evolving field with many opportunities for those who have an eye for creativity.

Design Principles

Graphic designers must understand the basics of design principles to create effective visuals. These principles include balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, space, and unity. Balance refers to the distribution of elements in a design. Contrast is used to draw attention to specific areas of the design by creating differences between elements. Emphasis helps focus attention on certain areas or objects within the design by making them stand out more than other elements in the composition.

Movement adds energy and dynamism to designs by suggesting motion or directionality. Pattern creates visual repetition by repeating a particular element throughout the design while maintaining its overall look and feel. Rhythm creates connections between elements by repeating them in a consistent manner. Space allows viewers to focus on individual parts of a composition without distraction from other elements in the same area of the canvas. Lastly, unity ties all elements in a composition together for a unified overall look and feel that conveys a specific message or feeling.

Typography

Graphic designers must also have an understanding of typography in order to effectively communicate messages through text-based designs. This includes knowledge about typefaces (fonts), leading (vertical spacing), kerning (horizontal spacing between characters), tracking (letter-spacing), line length/measure (the width of text blocks), typographic color (the relative darkness or lightness of text blocks), font size/weight/style/variant (variations in weight or style) and other typographic details that help communicate ideas through type alone.

Image Manipulation

Graphic designers must also have knowledge of image manipulation tools such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator in order to manipulate images for use in graphic designs. This includes understanding how to crop images, adjust brightness/contrast levels, remove unwanted objects from photographs or illustrations, add filters/effects to enhance photos or illustrations, add textured overlays for texture effects, combine multiple images into one composite image and more.

Layout & Composition

Graphic designers must also be able to create effective layouts for both print and digital media using various tools such as Adobe InDesign or Sketchbook Pro. This includes understanding how different layout grids work together with typography and visuals to create aesthetically pleasing designs that effectively communicate messages while also looking visually appealing at the same time.

Conclusion: What Do You Do in Graphic Design?
Graphic design is an ever-evolving field that encompasses many different facets including design principles such as balance, contrast and emphasis; knowledge about typography; image manipulation skills; layout & composition techniques; color theory; printing & production methods; digital marketing strategies; photography & illustration techniques; plus much more! Graphic designers combine all these skills together with creativity in order to create visually compelling designs that effectively communicate messages across both print and digital media platforms.