1. On pages 9-15 of “Graphic Design Theory: Reading from the field” Helen Armstrong catalogs the consumer-designer relationship’s evolution from the avant-garde to near modern day. Armstrong draws emphasis on the progression from avant-garde & international typographic style pressing functionalist & constructivist visual tropes aiming to create a universal utopian visual language, to western new age practitioners refocusing design on subjectivity, intuition, & self-expression. 
  2. The main difference between design & other creative fields is that artistic anonymity is celebrated in most corporate settings. A successful design is invisible to the consumer & easily replicable by the client; design authorship & identity has only recently gained prevalence due to the rise of social networks & heightened accessibility of design tools.
  3. Designers should concern themselves with theory because it can add new dimensions to the act of being a designer. With deeper knowledge of theory comes a deeper understanding of how to create meaningful pieces and deeply impact a target audience.
  4. Technology greatly accelerated the insurgence of authorship & social impact in design. With designing software becoming easily accessible to the public & artists across the world able to share, comment, & recreate a nearly infinite number of pieces, design as a whole has sprung forth into an era of authorship, social impact, & constant visual revolution.
  5. The most urgent problem designers are faced with today is the unrelenting urgency to get ahead of the curve. Designers today compete with anyone with a laptop and a Creative Suite subscription, and with a rise in design talent, production, & distribution, designers often find themselves scrambling to stand out from the crowd. This leads to designers ignoring the history of design & disregarding the theory & process of good design. Still, this is a problem contemporary designers perpetuate with each individual’s rush to success; & as such, it can be mitigated by designers prioritizing quality over quantity, cultural impact over KPI impressions, & why design has worked in the past & how they can implement the same key principles to make it work now.