How Would A World Without Graphic Design Look Like?
Updated: Sep 7, 2018
Picture your favourite snack or soft drink in your head. The first thing that pops up in your mind is definitely the packaging, right? We might not know it, but graphic design encapsulates many aspects of our lives.
Imagine this, you’re casually strolling towards your usual bus stop. As you reach your bus stop, you look around and realize that all the colorful, eye-catching advertisement posters have been changed to just plain black words on a gray background.
Your bus arrives and you see that it is covered in gray with words that say “20% discount available for this month only” You look for a logo to find out which company produced this hideous advertisement and the letters ‘STARBUCKS COFFEE’ on the bottom catches your eye. The letters are printed in the exact fonts that were used for the posters at the bus stop, there is no sign of the iconic mermaid logo.
After boarding the bus, you look out the window and all you see on signboards are just words or plain pictures with no typography, illustrations or even basic color coordination.
10 minutes later you get down at your stop and enter a nearby convenience store to purchase a magazine. All the magazines are having different color covers, but their title, headings and articles are printed in the same exact font you’ve been seeing all day.
How dull and boring will life be if the scenario above came true? Imagine McDonalds not having their iconic yellow M on a red background. What if Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Sprite all had the same font and no logo?
It is by instinct that we desire visually pleasing sights (Hosey 2013). One of our basic senses is sight, and this causes us to react sensitively to what we see every day. Additionally, we subconsciously react to different fonts and colors. A messy layout or font that is hard to read causes negative emotional feelings (Cho 2017). Colors are also able to evoke certain feelings and emotions (Cherry 2018). Graphic design combines the art of a good layout, aesthetic combination of words and graphics, suitable fonts and applicable colors. If graphic design disappears one day, we would be tortured by disorganized layouts of words and pictures, clashing combination of colors and the same old fonts for every design.
On a business level, graphic design also serves as an essential part in helping a brand stand out among competitors (Sparkle 2017).
As mentioned above, Coke, Pepsi and Sprite all have different logos and colors that we associate them with. They have respectively created a distinct brand image for their brand with the help of their own logos. However, in a world without graphic design, it would be hard to differentiate the three brands from each other.
Hopefully this post has made you think of how important graphic design is. After you leave this page, pay a little bit more attention and you will be amazed by how much graphic design influences our daily thoughts and feelings!
Reference List
Hosey, Lance. 2014. “Why We Love Beautiful Things.” The New York Times Company. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/opinion/sunday/why-we-love-beautiful-things.html.
Cho, Mikael. 2017. “The Science Behind Fonts (And How They Make You Feel).” The Next Web. https://thenextweb.com/dd/2017/03/31/science-behind-fonts-make-feel/.
Cherry, Kendra. 2018. “Color Psychology: Does It Affect How You Feel?.” Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-2795824.
Sparkle, Sarah. 2017. “The Impact of Graphic Design on Business.” Design Sparkle. http://designsparkle.com/impact-of-graphic-design-on-business/.
Comments