Reading Response: Defining Graphic Design

Type and Image, Meggs, page viii

Graphic Design Sources, Hiebert, p 9-10

I found the readings to be terribly confusing. Maybe I'm just completely ignorant, but both Meggs' and Hiebert's introductions seemed rife with contradictions and somewhat arbitrary sounding proclamations. In general, everything in life is extremely complicated and contradictory and confusing, but I feel like design is one of those things that ought to exist in a state of soothing clarity. Yes, there are subtleties and difficulties that must be explored and explained, and I would certainly like to read the rest of these texts in order to understand more about the concepts addressed in the introductory snippets. But am I the only one that felt like I was being harangued by these writers? To me, design has a different essence-very zen, less regimented. Most of all, it seems odd to describe graphic design as an interdisciplinary or hybrid art form, yet so blatantly place it somewhere above all other arts.

This really got me thinking. Perhaps when you disagree with something you've read, it tends to weigh even more heavily on your mind than if you were to read something that you didn't feel inclined to question.