Chip Kidd says that everything that is not made naturally is by design. From the buildings you frequent to the food that you consume, design is in almost all things today. I would argue that design is what makes today, today, and the future, the future. It influences how we think, and what we choose, and creates memorable experiences. The articles that I read (mostly about Chip Kidd) shine light on some of the creative processes behind how creators design.

Graphic designers give every story a face or an impression of what you will get yourself into. They think about what stories look life and give form to content while keeping balance in their medium. They want to convey a message without treating their audience like morons. Its either a show or a tell, not both. Sometimes, when designers start they do so without knowing what they are going to do, but when they do start they have to stop when keeping going would be too much. If you are a book designer your responsibilities are to the “audience, the publisher, and most of all the author”- Chip Kidd. It’s like they are looking through the wardrobe of the content and putting the best outfit forward so that you pick that up and want to know more. I didn’t know that I was influenced by the covers of movies and books so much!

Movie posters are the best example of this creative process. Each genre has specific criteria to portray what the movie is about for example horror tends to have a black-and-white background, some red highlights, and very specific fonts for the genre. Comedy tends to have a huge red lettering and either a specific set up of characters or a scene that looks like it has been pulled from the movie itself. The white backgrounds of the comedy gives focus to the subjects of the movie poster (usually main characters) and emphasis on red lettering. If the main characters are very well known then usually the font will be smaller and the picture of the actors will be large. Vice versa, the smaller actors have larger text and the actors in the for ground small.

We learn about negative space in High School English but I never thought too much about it until revisiting the topic through this assignment. The use of negative space is also used in graphic novels and comics. In comics and graphic novels what is happening between the panels is more important than what is going on in the panels. The use of negative space, fonts, and panel content to get the reader to fill in the blanks, graphic design makes you pay attention to what is not there and fill in the blanks for yourself. 

In summary, graphic design is about telling a story or a piece of a story without explicitly stating it. They ask themselves what a story looks like. Graphic designers take a lot into account when making designs and it’s all in respect to the audience, publisher, and the author. While there is a blueprint that they can follow to show that it’s a horror, thriller, comedy, or action, a lot of the decisions are ultimately up to the designer. Its really interesting to know what goes into creating what we consume visually each and every day. When looking at anything with a sign I don’t really appreciate the time, consideration, and work that went into it. Moving forward, I will definitely look at things from a different perspective.