Is Design Art?

Posted on by Mason Cook

The first semester of the graphic design career at the ENEP Acatlán was not yet finished some yesterdays ago when other friends, mostly students of humanistic jobs, questioned me about my decision to study graphic design since my facility with the visual arts was innate.

Study Painting Or Art History

Artistic Value

"Why did not you get to study painting or art history? Do you think that what you do will have artistic value and transcend? Is design art? "

 

Graphic Design

All of us who have studied graphic design or visual communication has gone through a similar moment and tried to assume a position in the face of such questioning.

Masters Of Design

I will quote Joan Costa, one of the modern masters of design, in an interview a few years ago when he was asked about this: Leonardo gives Vinci, Van Gogh or Picasso are not "artistic."

Art Or design

Art or design? Or more exactly: what matters is the nature of those things. «Artistic» is not art. Leonardo Da Vinci, Van Gogh or Picasso are not "artistic."

I will quote Joan Costa, one of the modern masters of design, in an interview a few years ago when he was asked about this:

“One can do many different things, paint a painting, design a poster, cook and play chess. The essence of the question is not the person who does the thing, but the thing that this person does: Art or design?

The adjective “artistic” is linked to the act of creation. But we are talking about nouns and capital letters: Art and Design. He mistrusts the adjective “artistic” when applied to something that is not art. But he also mistrusts “design” as an adjective: design furniture, designer clothes, design hairdressers or designer drugs. “

Drawing And Text Are To Talk About Design And Art

Posted on by Mason Cook

Costa defines design as a functional expression, as an activity that uses art to communicate and solve a problem.  Art, on the other hand, raises questions. The cubism, abstraction, impressionism are questions about life, the world, especially our ideas, society, values and the human mind.

Although the design cannot be considered as post-impressionist, or expressionist, or informal, or surrealist art, if it is possible to say that it uses geometry, pure color, the graphic sign, the point and the line. In Nature, which is the inspiration of classical art, there are no lines or contours, but drawing and writing do belong to the nature of the sign.

The common denominator of art and design, according to Costa, is the graph, or “the graphic,” the Greek word that defines the common root of drawing and writing in the human hand.

There is graphic art, and there is graphic design. The first is the drawing and the stroke of the great painters. The second is the printing of cast characters in a Gutenberguian press.

But other currents exist that affirm that design and art are two branches of the same tree, where only a few can find the differences.

Lee Clow, legendary publicist and creator of campaigns as iconic as “Think different” from Apple, says: “Toulouse Lautrec was a great designer. His posters invited the community to the Parisian night shows. However today his work is exhibited in museums worldwide and is considered a master of impressionism. Our work ends in the streets and forms part of the urban landscape like the Lautrec posters. Would not it be logical to think that one day our work could end up hanging in an art museum? “