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? “