Graphic design schools prepare students for a future career in “the arts”, but many who are still trying to decide on a major may not understand what that means.
At a period in the economy when it is more important than ever to choose the right career path, graphic design schools may offer more than one might expect in the way of flexible career choices.
Graphic designers go on to work in a seemingly limitless pool of job categories. Everything we see on television, billboards, magazine ads, and even on the walls of our favorite eateries and the subway stations in from which we travel were created by someone in “the arts”. Most of the time, those creators are graphic design graduates who made a career choice to be flexible and marketable to a variety of companies.
Everything has a label, an advertisement, and an associated image or logo these days. Graphic design school is where students learn to use the software needed to produce these forms of art and where they learn about the concepts of visual arts. It’s more than creating an image; graphic design students must learn about conveying emotions such as urgency, comfort, dismay, happiness, and an array of feeling.
From the ASPCA’s donation posters to major fashion label advertisements, a skilled graphic designer, if not several are involved in the process. Graphic design schools have to teach the tough lesson of guided imagery and emotional illustration. Most art students can illustrate their own emotions, but graphic design students have to guide the emotions of others and that is a harder task. In a recent article by Joanna Wilson at the University of Idaho in Moscow, University of Idaho professor in the college of art and architecture Greg Turner-Rahman explains it well: ““They have to think about everything that’s happening there. How does this feel? Does it express what I’m trying to say? Is it clear?”
