We’ve discussed this here before, but it seems I’ve caused a bit of a frenzy again with this idea that it’s time to change our professional title, suggesting we go so far as to change the very name of our association, dropping the term “Graphic Designer” in favour of “Communication Designer”.

From my IBC blog:

The longer I stay in this industry, the more I realize the difference between producing graphically appealing (pretty) solutions and creating strategic communication solutions that produce results.

Though I use my training in Graphic Design daily and often find much of what I do professionally to be based on visual language and aesthetics, it is only one of many services I offer my clients. Being labeled a Graphic Designer feels a little like being called a draftsman, colour artist, desktop layout artist or something else that does not come even close to describing what I do. I believe this is likely true of most of my colleagues in the communication design industry and I want to know. Though it irks me when people cite Wikipedia as a source of definitions, it is interesting to note the definition of Graphic Design on that site as a subset of the field of Communication Design.

Read the rest of this post.

As we will be discussing this important issue at the GDC National AGM in Montreal in April, I invite all GDC members and non-members alike to post comments with their thoughts or suggesions on this topic.

1. Matt Warburton FGDC Says:
   March 22nd, 2007 at 9:06 am

   So we get a stamp, we celebrate 50 years of design, we get the attention of international media and NGOs like the IOC, so you think it’s a good time to change what we call ourselves? Sounds like a poorly planned witness protection scheme…

   As an association we’ve spent 50 years defining and promoting the profession, not using the narrow definition IBC and Errol seem to believe we adhere to. The profession is recognized by business and government through legislation and policy. We, as professionals and as an association will continue to raise awareness and set standards, as the profession evolves and public perceptions change.

   What we need to do is take ownership of the term “graphic design” and “graphic designer”. It has been usurped to a degree by the DTP crowd, or rather, by people who think what we do is simply desktop publishing.

   Personally I find Communication Design to be focused on the end result, not the process. Yes, I do do communication design, but I also do package design, packaging design, web design, writing, research, marketing, advertising, etc., all of which ends up in communication pieces, but that is to focus on the end result, not the journey. My company slogan is “Communicative Information Design”, but as a general definition, I am a graphic designer first, with various specializations and areas of expertise. To “graph” something is to simplify, interpret, process, analyze, etc. As graphic designers, that’s what we do in a nutshell. The end result is that you hope it communicates, but the process is what we talk to clients about.

   Everyone communicates, especially cel phone companies and communication managers (ala IABC’s members) so the immediate response is, “you’re a communication designer, so you design cel phone plans?… Oh, you design corporate identities and logos, I thought that was graphic design”

   The word “graphic” has much more relevant connotations to what we do as designers. In modern cultural dialogue it means something with depth or something that really creates a strong impression. It could be it literature (graphic novels), movies (graphic violence/porn), or news media (graphic journalism). To “communicate” is common and not unique to our profession. To communicate in a graphic manner is a unique ability and something for which we are recognized worldwide.

   As branding experts our time would be much more wisely spent promoting a better definition of the broad scope of what graphic designers actually do to the small percentage of people who think that all we do is DTP work—but quickly understand the full scope once its explained to them. As an association w need to continue to refine and implement strategies that will get this message across to the business community and potential members. Personally I like the odds of educating 50% of somewhat confused people, vs. 100% of completely unknowledgeable people.

2. Michael Surtees Says:
   March 23rd, 2007 at 8:10 am

   It’s an academic question Mark. Your premise for definition is not relevant today. It might have been beneficial a decade ago, but today it’s irrelevant. A better question would have been about a mission for the relevancy of the National GDC which now is completely lost today.

3. Juan Madrigal Says:
   March 24th, 2007 at 10:49 am

   The whole conversation about the “Graphic Design” term is endless…

   I still feel that I’m a “Graphic Designer”, but I have to say that “Communication Design” rather than being the best option, it might be the only one.
   If “Communication Design” is what we’re called now in other countries and by ICOGRADA (“Icograda is the world body for professional graphic design and visual communication”), we don’t have another choice than rename our profession as “Communication Design”.
   It doesn’t make sense if we (Canada) have a different name than the rest of the world; well, it seems that the term has been already assimilated or is going to be.

   I love print, and I’m going to feel as a graphic designer even if I almost agree on the “Communication Design” term.
   “Visual design” is weak and “Design” happens to be too wide and ambiguous.
   “Graphic Communications Design” could be the answer or the point in between, but it’s a little bit too long.

   I don’t agree on most of the overly-thought explanations about why the name should be changed.
   I believe in the evolution and progress of our métier, but falling in a vague discussion saying that the word “communication” “communicates” more than “graphic” it’s a waste of time and it’s really redundant.
   If it happens to be that you’re an ultra-specialized designer that never felt the term “graphic” made justice for you, it might be that “communication” is not going to be enough for a lot of professionals like you.

   But what if I’m not that faraway from “graphic”, if I don’t want to be “beyond graphic” at all, what I want to stay flat and two dimensional? That doesn’t mean I don’t create, develop, conceptualize, research, design and direct professionally every project.
   The validity of this whole controversy is that we might be able to standardize and regulate our professional position, not a list of what we are and what we’re not.

   It is also worth to examine other professions.
   Architecture:
   Around the world you can only call your self an Architect, only if you are “licensed” or “registered”. Then is not about a name, it’s about an entity who rules the profession and protects the Architects from the self-taught or self-called Architects.
   You’re an Architect or a draftsman (CAD operator) by law. An architect can do the job of a draftsman, but a draftsman can’t do the work of an architect (legally speaking).
   It’s the same term all over the world; Architect, Architecte, Arquitecto, Architekt, Architetto, etc. You don’t have to speak English, French, Spanish, German and Italian to know the meaning of each of these words.

   Engineer:
   In most of Europe, North & South America the term “engineer” it’s so broad that there’s all kind of engineers and self-called engineers. When a specific term, as a Mechanical, Civil or Chemical is added to the word Engineer, they’re protected and regulated by a professional council. Even being limited by law, there’s technicians that called them self’s engineers, but you won’t be able to work as a Civil Engineer if your not a licensed one.

   The point is, we can change our profession title and create confusion among the rest of the non-designer human-beings, but if we are regulated, licensed or registered, and we hold the same term as most of our professional colleagues from abroad, then somebody who cracked a design software and downloaded some tutorials won’t be able to pretend that is one of us, and the business community would believe and relly on what we do.
   And most important, we’ll hold the same title within Canada, which is good for our profession.

   We might change design’s history…

   Juan Madrigal

4. Marga Lopez Says:
   March 26th, 2007 at 12:57 pm

   I agree that the term Graphic Designer does not properly describe all aspects of the profession, but I’m not completely sure that the term Communication Design is as clear as we want it to be when speaking of what we do.

   I also agree that our profession is misunderstood by the general public and that we are the ones who need to educate them and change their perception. Possibly by changing our “title” or “description” is not enough. Either way it is our job to educate and brand ourselves properly, as an individual doing business or as a professional association.

   I think the issue is more complex than naming, it is about separating us from the amateur or Desktop publisher in a way that is more than just the title.

   I do not expect to have only “sophisticated” clients that understand the difference between a kid with photoshop abilities and my education and work experience as a Graphic Designer, Design Strategist or Communication Designer, but if the client is not that sophisticated, it is hard to make that difference noticeable. Our profession is lacking something more substantial than a mere title. It needs credibility and a change of name won’t do in my opinion.

   Many of us have a Graphic Design education under our belt, aesthetics is embedded in our brains and in the way we see the world; colour theory, typography, geometry, balance, etc… you can’t take that from the head of an educated designer and make it show on an CS application. Of course there will always be the few talented people with no former design education that make us look inadequate and that make the difference between the good use of a tool and our profession, pretty much impossible; but those are amazing people that have earned the respect of others who had the education and succeeded in a career that is very competitive and that appreciate talent to that extent. But can we call them Graphic Designers or Communication Designers just because they are talented? and should we do the same with other Desktop publishers?

   Democratization of design is about the tools being available to everyone, not about people taking credit for their abilities on the computer and start calling themselves “Graphic Designers” because they pay full price for a tool. It is up to us to differentiate our work by giving return of investment value to what we do. I think that is what will make our profession worthy, not just the name… every desktop publisher can start calling themselves “Communication Designer” just because it is the new trend.

   I think Juan nailed the problem… Our profession should be licensed or registered. I know why Architects and Engineers need to have their profession regulated, it’s because lives depends on their work abilities being validated by their education… maybe Graphic Designers won’t have that until someone dies of a case of “Bad Design by Desktop Publisher” or something in that realm : )

   I love the idea of making history… but let’s be sure we check all angles before jumping into something that might bite us back if we don’t consider the whole picture.

5. Matt Warburton FGDC Says:
   March 26th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

   I can’t see RGD Ontario being granted new legislation to control a designation entitled “Registered Communication Designer”. There were some very unique circumstances when the GDC chapters in Ontario got it in 1996, and are highly unlikely to be repeated, so its dubious to presume the legislators would agree to the new term. So 50+% of the designers in Canada will always be Registered Graphic Designers.

6. Rick Strong Says:
   March 30th, 2007 at 8:11 am

   Example 1: Back in 1989 when I was starting my graphic design company, I chose the term “Visual Communications Consultant”. After doing a mailout to professionals, I got a call from a medical doctor’s office asking me to see him because he had a nurse (one of the staff) who didn’t know how to talk to patients in his office or people on the phone without insulting them or otherwise not being tactful.

   I guess my letter didn’t communicate properly, because he wasn’t the only one who thought that I was providing group process skills.

   Example 2: I recently completed a complex 300 page hard cover book with lots of 4c plates, the works. Even though I showed an accountant friend the actual finished product, he didn’t “get” the specific work I had done until I showed him a series of the actual design boards.

   Of course, design and layout weren’t the only things I brought to the project. There were project management, marketing, editing, photography, print production and, yes, group process skills as part of the whole package.

   So, “Graphic Designer” doesn’t say it all, but if the vast majority don’t understand the business, “Communication Whatsit” won’t do it either.

7. Jon Whipple Says:
   April 11th, 2007 at 9:57 pm

   Hey Mark, before you head to Montreal, I thought I’d stick a word in edgewise.

   I am a Graphic Designer. Still. Ironically, before I got my MGDC, I would tend to refer to myself as a designer, a visual designer, or a communications designer. The fact that there was a GDC and a portfolio review made it all the more important to me to stretch myself and the gain the skills and experience that I would need to show others I was a professional too.

   Because of the scope and domains of your endeavours at IBC, you are obviously interested in all the things that graphic design touches, and I suspect your search for a more apt and useful term in your business activity is the motivation behind your return to this subject.

   I have always imagined that graphic design is at the epicentre of all symbolic design and there are few if any design pursuits that are not affected by graphical expression in some way. Graphic design is a common thread in all visual communication, in some cases providing a foundation in others a finishing touch, but it remains present nonetheless.

   For myself, Graphic Designer is more than adequate. It’s perfect.

8. Yves Rouselle Says:
   April 17th, 2007 at 10:35 am

   I am more than a little torn on this subject. Two years ago, Walter Jungkind and I polled different designers and organizations in hopes of finding common language we could hang onto as we attempted to revisit the GDC’s definition of our profession. I personally believe that this kind of work is central to the mandate of any professional body. We must be in a position of leadership, and providing guidance to our members and the public. We did not review the name we use for our profession or for that matter the name incorporated into our Society. But I am not adverse to questioning it, in fact I encourage it.

   Many of my clients seem to be very confused in regards to what we offer as designers, what our capabilities are and so on. On many occasions I’ve had clients tell me that our firm is not graphic design because we don’t fit their understanding of what graphic design is and where a designer starts or ends. I believe that is partly due to changing times, it is partly due to the fact that all designers are different with different aptitudes, skills and interest, and lastly due to our professions lack of promotion and awareness.

   The name has not helped me, but then neither have any other monickers I’ve tried out with the exception of “Yves”. And even that is a bit of a stretch in english Canada.

   So whilst I encourage the debate my belief is that the path to success lay in the promotion of our profession. I would like to think that a new name would solve our problems. However I think we would get further, faster, by strengthening our brand awareness and getting our message out to business, government and educators. A strong communications plan explaining the value of design to business would get us much further along. And this debate does play a part in getting more people involved in a dialogue about the benefits our profession has to offer.

9. Michel Kurita Says:
   April 27th, 2007 at 10:01 am

   On the subject of licensing:

   I wish I had a greater knowledge of the professions mentioned above that require licensing.

   Lives are not on the line if Graphic Design fails. If my car mechanic / interior designer / architect / engineer does not have the complete knowledge of their job, my life is at risk.

   The only risk that my clients face is poor ROI, and possibly lowered reputation if the design fails that miserably.

   As graphic designers, we do not have access to that kind of information all of the time, and have no way of really determining why design succeeds.

   There is no single process (a+b=c) that will guarantee a design will be successful or not.

   If we assume that Canada becomes serious about design (in that there would be several University’s offering Graphic Design as a bachelor with a Masters and PHD option) - would this not be the ultimate level of education?

   But can this actually be possible today - most of us are generalists in design - specialists in one area and with good working knowledge of the others - but not excellent in all at all times. So how do we create a great model for education without limiting ourselves?

   And how would we bring our contemporaries into the fray - photographers, artists, illustrators, typographers….No matter how diverse the field of architecture is, do they not have a pool of licensed consultants to draw from?

   We do not.

   On the subject of title:

   My background is fine art. I remember when the idea of multiplication of my work seemed like blasphemy and selling out.

   But I became fascinated by the audience and how people reacted with my work. I was drawn to design by their representative elements - how good design showcased a person, a product, a company or a religion and convince the audience that they (or it) was a great thing (for better or for worse).

   But I had no delusions that I was no longer creating *true* art. I was becoming a commercial artist, and even today depending on my client, I will call myself a Senior Graphic Designer or Senior Graphic Artist, and explain the rest of what I do.

   The basic meanings of the title of Graphic Designer is formal enough to accommodate all of the fields we participate in: Film, television, installations, web, kiosk, print, etc etc.

   In training, I have no formal education in design or in business - I have accumulated these on my own time and at the beginning of my design career, I relied significantly on my talent and charisma. But I wish Graphic Design was offered at U of T. Colleges just didn’t seem important enough to my parents. So instead, I decided to go it alone, seeing as so many of us do, which also appealed to my ‘artist’ tendencies.

   To combine both issues of licensing and title:

   After attending the AIGA conference, “GAIN - The Business of Design”, I realized that the main area of contention for clients is not the design per se, but that we know how to run a business. That as business owners, we understand the risks that our clients have taken to hire us, and that we will address their (financial) concerns - that we will do the normal corporate things that add value or create efficiencies to doing business when we are engaged in a creative venture together.

   Design can only be subjective. Business practices are objective.

   Some questions:

   For example: As an association, could the GDC research the possibilities of having a structured fee system with a standard floating point variable to account for client size and target market?

   For example, if an oil change is $30 (or $80 per hour) for a car right across the country, which takes into account junior mechanics right up to master mechanics, what is our $30 service?

   Can we find a system of doing free estimates?

   In theory, a kid down the street can in fact understand photoshop more than I can, but I hardly think he can do business as well as I can, and I’m willing to bet that he has no fee structure in place and the vocabulary to accurately communicate what his design means.

   So to me, if we are going to alter our title at all, (and we do this in regularity: what is an Art Director in the field of design vs. a Senior Graphic Designer, when “Senior” would denote more or less the same amount of seniority), the word should add the idea that some standard in business training as been achieved, so how about:

   Professional Graphic Designer.

   and then add the acronym of the association that you are registered with.

   Without a standard of business, we currently rely on full service agencies to give us our weight along with our own personal talents in running a business.

   I agree that we need to distance ourselves from our current free flowing model.

   I’m sure there must be some mathematicians out there who can assess and create some interesting models for our industry. Perhaps the best way is looking outward to gain our weight - if our model was created by a large accounting firm (imagine: “GDC supported by Deloitte”, would that not fit the corporate level of status we are trying to achieve?

   While we’re at it, should we not also add a lawyer or two to figure out a liability structure for protection?

   While there might be some uproar to this, I understand that big corporations “bend the rules” when it comes to billing - and we do this on a daily basis - but we need a set of rules first.

   I would surmise that a successful overarching model would be:

   Design education (art and design history, traditional media, typography, photography, web, tv, film, mass communication, including connections to international universities and allow for a 3 year B.A in Design with co-op mandatory. Masters level would be the areas of specialty of choice: Flash, Print, CSS, 3D, Animation, etc.) or by portfolio and interview.

   +

   Accreditation by association after taking the business course designed for our industry’s needs, which should then lead to greater success.

   As designers of graphic media, I can’t think of a better title than our current one. More people know what graphic design means than ever before. The issue now is supporting this term in a global corporate context.

10. Monica Johnson Says:
    April 30th, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    Could it be possible that the title graphic design is far enough removed from it’s original meaning today that it has become a blank slate – sort of like a dead metaphor? Perhaps we can keep the term but give it new meaning through promotion. And, considering what we do is so varied and complex, and it is unrealistic to come up with a name that will describe us all, perhaps an immaterial name is just the thing we need. Then we can all define ourselves specifically, but still be part of a collective field. It’s an intriging paradox anyway - a meaningless name to describe meaning makers.

11. Afiyf Divyn Says:
    June 19th, 2007 at 2:55 pm

    Why is the term so Important?

    If your recognized internationally for creating communication architectural works of bloody brilliance why is the term graphic design so important?

    After all, as a graphic designer, they’re finally not confused about what to look for. I must educate those that purchase services about the way things work. Now you want to change the name? Talk about confusion! How is that communication?

    Settle down, it’s all EGO! If you had work, you would not have the time to write all of this nonsense

12. Michael Jacoby Says:
    July 14th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    To Afiyf Dinyn: I second that! The hardest part of being any designer is dealing with your own ego. As much as some would like to believe we have any control over the meanings behind our work title, is that really our job? In the end I’m fine with the client/consumer evolving the term “graphic designer” on their own.

    And the only reason I have time to reply is because I have no work at the moment!

13. Jon Whipple Says:
    July 17th, 2007 at 8:59 am

    …and it is unrealistic to come up with a name that will describe us all, perhaps an immaterial name is just the thing we need. Then we can all define ourselves specifically, but still be part of a collective field…

    Nice! I think this is the notion that I am subscribing to.

14. Duncan Creamer Says:
    August 7th, 2007 at 9:52 am

    As a person that graduated from a design program called Electronic Communication Design, I still consider myself a Graphic Designer. I think the term “graphic” merely has a larger meaning these days.

    The value lies in the history of the name, to change it now would just confuse people. (Remember the ’90s and how everyone wanted to call themselves Gurus?)

15. GDC/BC Blog » Blog Archive » RGD Founder Resigns From Board, Abandons R.G.D. Designation Says:
    September 29th, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    [...] when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, infighting among Graphic Designers has reached a new height; the battleground this time around: [...]

16. Edward C. Says:
    September 30th, 2007 at 4:01 pm

    I think that defining ourselves using the term Graphic Designer or packaging designer or anything prefixed by designer is a mute point.

    I think of myself as a visual problem solver. My clients have problems that I help to solve visually. Be it with a package, a brand, a website or anything that conveys a message to a consumer.

    More than anything, I think that it is time to strike from our vocabulary the term Desktop Publisher, it has gone the way of the eight track and the cassette tape.

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