Module 1

When I started my freshman year of college more than a decade ago, I signed up for a History of Tribal Art class. I had not had a substantial exposure to it previously, and I loved the idea of learning about something so different and new to me. Every week was exciting because of the exposure to new cultures and beliefs, and seeing how these were expressed through art. I went in to the class with no expectations and very open-minded because I had no real frame of reference when it came to tribal art. While I had some knowledge and appreciation of art and different movements, they were from eras and cultures vastly different from the ones I was now studying, and so I did not carry and preconceptions that influenced my interaction with the subject matter.

Already, the experience I am having with this class is vastly different. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit my narrow conception of graphic design before I worked my way through the first reading assignment. My exposure to graphic design and graphic designers in my professional work restricted and biased my outlook. I have known artists who turn their noses up at comic books or cartoons, insisting they do not qualify as "art." I never agreed, believing both deserve the distinction of "art" even if they are created with different motivations and techniques. However, I find myself guilty unconsciously of creating a separation between graphic design and "art." 

I saw graphic design as a purely technical skill set, something that could be accomplished independently of the common ideas of "art." In my professional life, graphic design has been used to translate large sets of data into graphics that are more widely accessible and easily digested, or create pleasing presentations, reports, and advertisements to impress clients. My view of graphic design was limited to a business focus, and a particularly modern one. Until the day I logged into this class, I suppose I imagined the history of graphic design would be a relatively young one, focused on the technological advancements that have enhanced and changed the field in the digital era. The moment I saw the sample question in the syllabus about illustrated manuscripts, my previous notions were flipped.

In my Library and Information Science Master's program, I had studied manuscripts, the invention of the printing press, and other advancements in the development of the written word, but in my focus on the changing world of books and information, I never considered the substantial role graphic design played in all of it. Suddenly, I realized that the creation of the alphabets and fonts, the decision on how to lay out the works and illustrate them, all of which were key to the creation and historical significance of these advancements, were created through graphic design. As I looked at the pictures in the textbook, my idea of graphic design changed entirely, and I was shocked by how I had never recognized it. 

I read an article a while back about a study where a group of radiologists whose job is to find nearly invisible signs of cancer in scans were givens slides with a picture of a man in a gorilla suit superimposed on them and told to find the cancer signs. These are experts in finding minuscule abnormalities in complex scans, but the majority of them did not notice the gorilla. The findings of the study show that how we focus on the world in front of us impacts what we perceive. For the radiologists, their intense focus on finding very specific data caused them to overlook something blatantly odd. In my case, my heavy focus on a different field and specific applications of graphic design made me blind to the impact and evolution of graphic design throughout history.

This initial reading has made me very eager to learn more about the field. It has been an invisible partner through much of my previous studies, and it will be very fascinating to spend more time understanding the role of something I had always taken for granted.