In our first class of Topics in Graphic Design, a wide variety of topics in the graphic design world were covered and some were not. A couple of things that were mentioned challenges in the design world, trend setters, freelancing and much more. One thing that I found interesting right of the bat in class was the discussion of trend setters in the world today. As we began to list and mention a couple of the trends setters, a fellow classmate mentioned an unusual trend setter which was Donald Trump. I never put much thought about it before but he actually is considered a trend setter. He set the trend for many celebrities to want to run for political positions in America and I found that statement interesting. Now on the topic of graphic design trend setters I mentioned two of my favorites which were Banksy who send the trend for his stencil graffiti art style and Shepard Fairey who send a trend for bringing back Russian constructivism styles in all his designs. I also realized that Stefan Sagmiester is considered one for his body art designs that he does on himself.

The idea of being a trend setter can apply to me being a graphic designer/creative professional in many ways. If I design or create something that catches people’s attention, they can get inspires or even attempt to recreate/ appropriate what I have accomplished. This is not entirely a bad thing because if people appropriate or parody what you have done you actually end up gaining more recognition than you actually had before. For example, Shepard Fairey who is my second favorite graphic designer in the world created the famous Obama “HOPE” poster a while back. As simple yet visually appealing as it is the poster began to gain recognition and was parodied many times still to this date.

We also not only mentioned trend setters in general, but we mentioned trends in the graphic design world as well. One thing that was mentioned was changes to brand identity. Many companies and brands in the world today have set the trend to change their branding color schemes or identity entirely. One of the first starters of this was Instagram. Instagram logo and color palette change caught a lot of people by surprise and managed to upset many. They went from a conventional camera logo to a vibrant minimalistic camera with a gradient of purples and oranges. Despite the hate many brands suddenly began to follow. Brands like Dropbox and ihop did the same. Dropbox decided to drop their old color palette and try out many color schemes. Ihop changed its logo for a time to promote its new menu item and gained a lot of publicity by doing so.

Another thing mentioned in class was the discussion of art vs design. The two might seem the same but they are both vastly different. In art it’s more expressive, you are free to put your own thoughts, emotion and opinion into your illustrations and paintings. Also art makes you feel a certain way, for both the one creating it and the one admiring it. Design however differs. Design has a purpose unlike art. It is supposed to strike a message and communicate to the audience in a certain way. The use of design has rules to follow and has structure organization, while some of these rules can be broken you can still manage to see consistency throughout. Also design is heavily used to sell ideas and products something art doesn’t really do.

Overall this first class of topics in graphic design was a successful one. We covered a variety of design topics, learned some new ones and refreshed on some old. Some interesting topics that I will like to see discussed in class that we didn’t get to cover were freelancing rates and more about design studios environments.