The word design has always shared a connotation with the word organization. This often implies structure and targets: putting everything in its proper place, leaving very little room for question and self-interpretation. While design is associated with art, design has never quite equated to fine art in the eyes of many. Due to common and constant exposure of graphic design, we lose the idea that it is also an art. The belief: fine art is more about ideas, while graphic design means commercialism. In fact, if “eye candy” existed, many would fall dead from diabetes. As Emerson once pointed out, “Familiarity is the hobgoblin of the masses.”

Familiarity suffocates free thinking. In a society of competition and commercialism, we fit graphic design into the same schema of persuasion. It means leading the eye to a specific place on the page, brainwashing. Time and time again, people accept these assumptions as the rules of design. However, the dictionary defines design with one word: layout. How one chooses to place the elements onto a blank page to convey a message or an idea comes from the designer’s sense of intuition and imagination. Because both art and design rely on the same principles and elements, they bleed into each other. To say that art and design are separate things would be absurd.

Art and design feed off of ideas, or concepts, spewing forth from the imagination. For some reason, we tend to see the bad graphic design: the repetitious solutions for advertising, like sex and self-awareness. The familiar works to persuade the masses: why reinvent it? Since we have grown so comfortable with these images of need and perfection, we forgot about the alternative ways to view things: our imagination, our perspective, becomes skewed to fit the grey consciousness of reality. We become noctambuists in the backwoods of rationality.

Suddenly, a handful of hearts scream at the false dilemmas presented to us on a day-to-day basis. The need for new ideas, the need to treat graphic design as fine art becomes imperative. To do this, one must bring design back to its roots: as an idea that nags, riots, tickles and refuses to go away. This idea eventually evolves and shapes our dreams and ambitions; perhaps even something that can change the world. The least it can do, though, is briefly brush the soul of another with a new experience. By capturing these ideas, the shapes of emotion and life, my goal becomes to share these ideas with others: to start a cognitive exchange that transcends corporate binds, human nature and cultural barriers. Simply put, to reset reality. In order to accomplish that goal, I must broaden my own perspective and I choose to start by partaking in this program.

To treat graphic design as anything less is a disservice to our imagination, to our integrity and to us.

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