You think you know the basics of what graphic designers do. They use design principles and special software to design logos, websites and other digital content like infographics. That’s all there is to it, right?
Not so fast. Digital graphic design work may get most of the spotlight, but that’s doesn’t mean print design is obsolete. There are many types of print design that are still a necessary part of the design field, and incoming graphic designers need to have sharp print design skills to be marketable in the workforce.
So what is print design and why does it still matter? We spoke with design experts to uncover the answers about this often-overlooked aspect of graphic design.
Print designs appear on printed media like business cards, billboards or brochures rather than digital spaces like websites. Just like digital designs, the goal of print design is to use visual graphics to communicate a specific message to viewers.
At first glance it might seem like print design is a rarity. If you take a closer look, however, you’ll realize that you’re surrounded by print designs every day. People regularly encounter print designs as they move throughout their day, making this area of graphic design important to efforts like brand marketing and advertising campaigns.
“Tons of print collateral and mediums are still very relevant today,” says Dana S. Hewling, owner and creative director at B.ID LLC. “People should be reached in both the digital world and in the real world.”
Graphic design in any form is about communication. Think of print design as just another avenue for reaching your audience and sharing your message. “Until everyone can digitally project everything, print will still be needed,” Hewling says. “You should have an understanding of how to produce strong, captivating print pieces that help build stronger connections with your target.”
It’s important to remember that print design is also evolving alongside digital technology. Mark Krenn, founder of Coastal Creative, points out that experiential design and marketing “bridge the gap between online and offline worlds” through immersive print design. With the advent of new technology that merges print design with the digital space, it’s clear that print design isn’t going to become irrelevant anytime soon. Advertisers want comprehensive campaigns that reach potential customers at all points—and that means a blend of digital and print advertising is likely to remain a viable approach.
Print design is all around us, often in ways we take for granted. Traditional business marketing still relies on print media to spread awareness of their brand. Print design also takes center stage in industries like publishing, where a well-designed cover can make a huge difference in book sales.
These are some of the types of print design to be aware of:
Print design and digital design are similar in many ways. They share the common goal of communicating with a target audience, and the basic principles of design hold true for both print and digital mediums. However, creating print designs differs from digital designs in a few key ways.
“Print designers need to be experts at working within specific bounds and ensuring the final product is absolutely pixel perfect,” says Krenn. “This differs from digital design work because with digital design, any mistakes and errors have minimal correction costs and can be easily fixed.”
This brings up another point: Print design is costly in a way that digital design isn’t. “An error on a printed job? That can cost up to thousands of dollars in lost material cost and require a full redo. There are hard fixed costs with printing design that don’t come close in digital,” Krenn says.
Print designers also have the added challenge of working with narrow parameters. There’s a limit to the size of a banner or business card, or to the number of words that will fit on a magazine spread. Print designers need to be aware of these boundaries at all times.
You can imagine that graphic designers need some special skills up their sleeves to keep up with the particular challenges of print design. Succeeding in this area of design includes knowing your way around a wider range of design software and understanding the basics of print design principles.
For example, print designers must always be aware of the resolution of their design to ensure that it prints at the highest quality, advises Hewling. “You must be using the right tools and assets for the job at hand. Not everything is Photoshop® in the world of print,” Hewling says. She recommends mastering Adobe Illustrator® for large-format print pieces and Adobe InDesign® for text-heavy layouts like books or magazines.
These skills may be specific to print design, but they’re applicable to careers across the graphic design industry. “Working offline can help focus a designer and make them think more creatively, which can then be transitioned to digital,” Krenn says. “This will help the designer rapidly improve their skills and show a diversity of work in their portfolio.”
If you’re considering a career in graphic design, you might find yourself with print design as an important part of your job. Wondering whether the graphic design field has any other surprises to offer? Discover these 8 Types of Graphic Design Jobs You May Not Know About.
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As design tools through digital and print mediums become more accessible across the globe, we enter an era of design that allows many to explore what it means to be a design practitioner; that is to say, the techniques and time put into exploring the actual doing of design is greatly accessible. However, with all experienced designers, there is a strategy and thought process that develops over time. Years of exploration, failure, success and repeating this process around the actual doing of design manifests itself in the form of strategy, process and iterations on an individual and/or group level of involvement. Over time, designers begin to develop a heightened sense of design, recognize the positive parts of design and transform from being a practitioner of the craft to becoming recognized as a thought leader within the industry and organization.
In this new era of digital accessibility to many various design tools, designers who have been honing their craft for years (and even decades) should recognize their role in this fast moving atmosphere. Instead of becoming bitter about the onslaught of fly by night design shops and many unqualified people taking on design roles for their own projects and organizations; I believe it’s important that we begin to recognize the clear dileniation between a practitioner of design and a thought leader of design.
A practitioner is a worker.
The practitioner uses the tools nesseccary to work in the design medium required. In digital, these tools range from graphic design, prototyping, photo editing, front end development, video and motion design, among many other tools. The modern designer is multidisciplinary – not by choice, but by nesseccity of the industry, job market, and requirements of projects set forth by leadership who have recently begun to understand the value (economically) of good design.
A practitioner today has many responsibilities and is often regarded as a “unicorn” type to the organization, but, the reality is that these multidisciplinary designers are applying the foundational elements of design thinking across a wide range of tasks and mediums. These practitioners are examples of the true value of design thinking throughout multiple mediums, across organizations, and even in daily living. Design thinking is powerful and we are finally at the intersection of society where the value of this thinking will be an intrinsically important role within the advancement of commerce, culture and aesthetics both digital and physical.
Let us not confuse the value of design thinking with execution. They are different but possibly mutually beneficial. There are many design practitioners who are incredibly talented at their work but they lack the intuition or practical application of design thinking into their work. That is at no fault to them, but the oscillating balance between being a practitioner and a thinker is unbalanced. This is a dangerous space to operate. In my opinion, design will be moving towards the value of the ability to think as our tools for serving as a practitioner become more accessible and automated. Just as working in photoshop 15 years ago to edit pixel by pixel for retouching an image has become some from hours / days worth of work to a matter of seconds, being a practitioner in the execution is going to be more automated . Designers need to understand the balance and difference of a practitioner and thinker.
This balance and difference is the future of design and the design industry. Design must fully embrace the foundations of design in every aspect.
Without these foundations embraced and advocated at the highest level of designer, expectations of an end product is unrealistic is there is a lack of the foundations that have brought design to where it exists today. The execution within itself must rely on the balance between aesthetic, function, form, development, testing, feedback, experience, quantitative and qualitative data and aligning with the overall brand style and narrative. The metamodern designer takes all of this into account when working on a design. We cannot afford to have an unbalanced approach to our work with the role as designer in modern society.
As we move forward, we must not look at the design industry as having an identity crisis, but we must continue to advocate for the value of design, the importance of design fundamentals, communicating these values and providing true return on investment through every project. There is a great oscillation between being a practitioner within society and forging new paths with thinking and ideas and the future of design in society.
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