Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Tech vs Design
Well, the fork in the road has reared its ugly head. As a designer, what do I stay focused on, technologies or design essentials. It seems that most seasoned professionals, ADs and CDs, take the latter and leave the tech to their aspiring assitants, graphic designers and apprentices. My crisis is this, I am THE graphic designer under an AD. So where do I go from here. The challenge is to find the medium between the two. I am empoloyed within a very small inhouse art department. are print and web. I love print and all that goes behind it. Something is said about a product that is tangible. Something you can touch, feel, induce a feeling in the consumer. Unlike the web and its infamous browser wars, the substrates of print are static. What one user sees, is what the other will as well (not to be confused with interpretation). If I work too long in the print realm, I lose time and focus in the media. To find an answer to this, we must look to the future. I believe that print will subtly change over the years, unless some technology like digital newpapers comes along. Obviously, the web, seems to change daily. I believe my focus here is to merge my web and print design standards. Any thoughts or comments on this topic is much appreciated
2 comments:
What do you mean by, " I believe that print will subtly change over the years"? Design trends? Or the technology behind print? (i.e. new paper substrates to print on)
As for the substrate or paper surface, I beleive that newer technologies will always be surfacing. The changes in print only seem subtle when compared to an industry such as the internet. For example, when you learn print design, you learn the basics about design and your pretty set to go. You might need to read up on a new type of paper or ink every once in a while or even a new font. But for the most part, it is pretty static. Now you compart that to web design. This is an area, for example, where what you learn today, might be outdated in a couple of months or even weeks. Macromedia came out with Flash MX and a year or so later came along Flash MX2004, with AS 2.0. Wow, a whole new puppie. Then they have to fix the bugs, so they introduce 7.1 a few months later. And don't forget the ever present browser wars. So once you think you have it all down, BAM!!!!! They, being the software developers, release a new version of Coldfusion, ASP or an upgrade on Flash.
Now of course some are thinking, what about when Adobe introduced the CS. Yeah, we as designers have the choice of relearning this software. That is the difference. We have a CHOICE. Our work, as print designers can still look up to date and have pop regardless if we have Photoshop 4.0 or CS. I can still work in Illustrator 10 and produce Addy worthy material. Whereas it would be next to impossible for me to take advantage of presenting video to the masses without learning newer and better technologies, and to keep up with other web designers. Face it, when you look back on Kioken's Motown web timeline, it just doesn't have the pop it used to, or the pop that some of the newer sites have today.
So, all in all, I strongly believe that the changes print designers are faced with are in no way insignificant. Designers are innovators at heart and are always looking to change what is at hand. When compared with web design, though, the changes seem so much less. Regardless of the industry, be it web or print, as a designer, changes mean challenges. And challenges mean growth in our industry of design.
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