Graphic Designer Lens

To have enough conviction to refer to oneself as a designer, one must possess the clichéd “eye for design”.

This often starts out inherent, realizing you’re not half bad at drawing, and it can be indefinitely developed. As a graphic designer, this is what you are paid for. You are being paid for your opinion of what “looks good”. Your aesthetic sense.

Traditionally, of any design niche, this means laying out shapes and colors to communicate something. This begins with a blank canvas and some tools (typography, images and white space). A few internal tools such as history and experience help too.

I find it interesting when applying this from-scratch way of looking at design to anything but. Photography. Photography’s backdrop is the world. The shapes, colors and layout are already there. The tools are updated to include perspective, lighting and framing. The alterations these tools offer make the toolbox no less vast. There are infinite ways to angle a camera. Of course, we’re not talking about studio photography, where you actually start out with a blank backdrop.

A photo can have the same end result as a design; portray a message, inspire a goal, offer information, include elements that keep the viewers attention, enforce meaning, convey emotion…When only acting as the viewer, do graphic designers photos look different than a non-designer’s photos? It’d be a good post…

(Check out books and flickr groups on the subject, if you like.)