About Graphic Art Careers

Graphic art has evolved over the centuries into a profession that is in high demand. Many wonder, with the invention of the Internet, whether graphic art will continue to be in demand in the future.

History of Graphic Art

Invented by cave dwellers who needed a way to "advertise" their adventures to other people in their clan, graphic art has always been a way of getting a message out to more than one person. Through the ages, artists were hired to draw and engrave printed materials and to paint them by hand. Since the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439 making mass production more prevalent, graphic art has become a profession that is in high demand for the printing industry.

Graphic Art in the Second through Eighth Centuries

In 175 A.D. the emperor of China commanded that the six main classics of Confucianism be carved in stone. During the second through eighth centuries, Buddhists started to make charcoal rubbings of these carved texts in hopes of having a copy of these of their own to study. This is the earliest known example of printing. As the idea spread, people soon realized that if they carved the stone with raised letters and in mirror image of what they wanted, put ink on the raised areas and pressed against it, they would get clearer, more easily read pieces. Graphic art at that time was centered around stone engravers. Printed books, woodcuts and movable type would all be invented over the next several centuries and all require the aid of someone to design the type and art that went along with it.

Types of Graphic Art Jobs

Graphic art covers more than just putting text together with pictures and printing them. The profession itself covers printing on paper, fabric, wall covering, clothing, billboards, signs, package design, graphics for cars, buses, trains, planes, advertisements in all media, illustrations for books, web design, software, visual design, backgrounds, textures, animations, and a host of other areas. Each area requires several different sets of job skills and levels of those skills to complete.

What is a Graphic Artist?

Graphic artists or graphic designers conceptualize, plan, analyze and create visual representations of ideas or solutions to problems. They are challenged to use creative ways to communicate ideas to large numbers of people, to make them understandable to a large variety of cultures, using color, texture and form. They are asked to not just follow, step by step what others think up, but to create new ideas for old thinking and to constantly challenge the "normal" way of doing things to grab the attention of their target audience. With the ever-quickening pace of the world today, graphic artists face challenges of not only keeping up with the times, but being at least a couple of steps ahead to anticipate what will be the next "big idea" in marketing and design.

Graphic Artists in the 21st Century

With the invention of computers and the Internet in the 1980s and 1990s, graphic artists' jobs have changed considerably. Each year more software and hardware is developed that must be purchased and mastered. Integration of the digital age with printed material was a transition that was and is being made quickly but has had its challenges. Computers and specialized software have made the process faster, but sometimes more complicated as well as creating a whole new set of graphic art jobs involving web design as well as software and video game development.

The Future of Graphic Art

The industry will most definitely change and the titles of those people doing the jobs in the industry will most certainly change along with it, but the need for communicating ideas to large numbers of people will never go away. That being the case, there will always be a need for people who are able to create and communicate and those who have the means to procure them, so the need for professionals should never die off.