Digital future of Graphic Design

Digital future of Graphic Design

·      How it has developed over the years and possible future developments. You must evaluate this information and predict the likely development of the future digital media in Graphics. (LO2)

Digital design started in 1980’s where icons where replacing text on Macintosh

. computers with basic black and white bitmap pixels. This is the first example of graphics being used onscreen.

Some years later the Internet was born and computers are viewed in colour instead of black and white, websites where basic and used tables to lay content out but with browsers and code language being updated, this allowed freedom for web designers to be more versatile and less rigid, leaving more room for creativity.

With the Internet being popular, using a computer in every home, it made it accessible, convenient as well as quick to find information and advertising realized the potential for marketing a product or websites so led to web banners being used on web pages in the 1990’s.

Web banners where static but in 1994 Ken McCarthy mentored Boyce in his transition from traditional to online advertising, and first introduced the concept of a clickable/trackable ad. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_banner)

Banner ads have mutated into pop-unders, pop-overs, and full-site takeovers.

(source:http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/10/1027hotwired-banner-ads/)

They can be found on just about every website viewed, the graphics are basic but are slowly improving in quality with the use of digital illustration.

Websites are not just viewed on a laptop but on mobile phones and tablets making the Internet accessible any where in world

Slowly just about anything electronic will link to the Internet

Adverts are now starting to pop up in digital screen formats rather than print as they show a short animation – a new aspect of promotional design for graphic design and advertising in digital advertising.

The Internet has become even accessible, with mobile phones and tablets being more and more popular. With this popularity it makes it more convenient to use a mobile phones or tablets to surf the Internet rather than to find a computer, as its always carried with the users. This makes it where designers now need to start thinking about whether a web design on computer would work on a mobile phone or tablet.

Tablet and mobile websites/applications can take advantage of interactivity linking together and designers are now creating graphics for the applications for the app store and android market, with every person we know now having a smart phone.

Currently graphic designers are now more in demand than ever to have skills in digital media to design the website layout and design and working with web design alongside print design.

Graphic designers are becoming more digitally orientated rather than sending out a letter a e-mail will be sent with a their mail letter head and have their portfolios online and as pdf ready to e-mail, this shows how the appeal to work digitally rather than in a hard format has taken place as its more accessible and open to the public, making it easier for designers to get jobs and get noticed.

Current design trends for creating websites at the moment are moving away from over done designs and are focusing simple designs that focus on the main messages.

Minimalist design has been quite dominating and will to continue to do so, social media channels being a big on the Internet with channel being set up and utilized through Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

A lot of websites have links to make their presence know or enable you to share an article from a site on to their social media account, this is something I have noticed to grow with button linking this on a lot of sites.

Everything is seemingly to become orientated around social media, whatever it is on the net, you may find or look at, it will always offer a link to to the user, this social networking plugins will continue to grow and become linked to everything on the net.

Stock graphics are being used less, from moving away from this it has turned to using hand drawn sketches making the design more personal and unique.

People will step back for creating ideas and realize that using hand drawn sketches will sell their idea, rather than a computer generated piece shown as it allows the client to use their imagination.

Colors are bold to emphasize the main parts of the site and tend to use colour palletes that are basic and not mixed a lot, I think that people will start to experiment with colour screen more and being more open minded as at the moment designers have rules of which colours to use and not to use on screen.

With the latest HTML5 and CSS3 its made it possible to create websites with even more flexibility as it allows you to animate the different layers of designs this resulting in the creation of stunning websites.

This transition from flash to HTML5 allows all users to view flash at any time unlike flash which if not having the latest update installed will not show the graphics. This being the death of flash and being universal for all computer users allowing graphics to be seen at all times and this could lead to more advertising being invested through this on the net.

I think from the current design that future will carry on the minimalistic trend and will find new ways linking to the Internet with people owning tablets instead laptops instead with designs more orientated around this and people being able to design and create websites and graphics on the go with a few clicks usings apps, this may put designers in less demand.