Graphic Design Is Not A Fine Art: The Conflation Of Visual Media

Avalon Days
8 min readDec 7, 2024

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I was suggested a TikTok the other day, captioned “My graphic design final”. It was a collage of candid photos taken by this person’s family member spanning over 50 years. Sprawled across the wall-mounted display were a few found objects and handwritten notes/captions that went into further detail of the piece’s meaning. The installation exists as a celebration of family and nostalgia, among others.

It was lovely, meaningful, and well-made, but in the grander scheme, this is not graphic design. This is fine art.

Of course, fine art and graphic design are related and intertwined in many ways. Fine art utilizes design principles. In this particular TikTok, you could ask tons of questions that would elicit a design-based response. Why did you choose handwriting for the text on your notes as opposed to a real font? What’s the rhyme and reason for what images you chose to include and where you mounted them on the wall? What’s the meaning behind the color that ties the entire piece together? These are all questions I was asked throughout my undergrad. A design education teaches you that virtually every decision you make in any design can (and should) be explained if someone were to ask you about it. Even if it truly is a “I just thought xyz element of my design looked nice” level answer, you can find a design explanation for almost anything.

Another time I came across a video of someone meticulously mounting their brand design — printed on everyday 20-pound copy paper — on black mounting board for a critique. Mounting board? For a logo? Why?

I don’t want to dish my criticism out on the designers in my examples; I’ve seen a lot of beautiful and meaningful work and these people are simply following the guidelines they’ve been given. There’s a greater issue with the instructors, programs, and institutions providing these guidelines. Graphic design and fine art are constantly conflated. Students seeking design jobs are being given fine art educations that lack the theory, structure, projects, and soft skills to truly prepare them for a design career.

Certainly No Surprise

When an institution determines that a graphic design major is valuable and will achieve adequate enrollment, they conflate it with other existing visual fields of study they already have. Why wouldn’t they? Art history. Illustration. Printmaking. Color theory. Use of digital tools like Photoshop. Hosting/creating something for an exhibit. Designing a poster. These are all things that I was taught (or had to acquire knowledge of) as a design student. These are also courses/skills that virtually every person getting a BFA in visual art should have.

It’s definitely not all that surprising. Most universities offer an art major, often with a concentration on a certain kind. Far fewer offer a degree in graphic design specifically. Many lump it in with marketing or animation due to how those fields often need or benefit from graphic design.

What’s In A Name?

The major has gone through a slew of evolutions and names throughout the last century. In 1910, Parsons was the first institution in the United States to offer graphic design as a field of study, originally referring to it as Advertising and Commercial Illustration. At this time, the school was named the New York School of Fine and Applied Art. Fine and Applied.

Even 114 years ago, at the institution that established graphic design in the United States as something worth studying, a line was drawn. Fine art — art that’s primarily created for its beauty/aesthetics or as a form of creative expression. Applied art — arts that apply design and artistic principles to practical objects in order to create something appealing to look at. Painting, drawing, and sculpture versus architecture, business branding, and product design. “Creative expression is king” versus “practical use/function is king”. That’s the line.

Yale University (which also claims to have been the first to open a graphic design program, but started theirs in the 50s) drew a similar line. With time, their program and curriculum changed. In 1972, the School of Architecture split from the School of Art; their Graphic Arts program became Graphic Design and took various bits of fine arts learning (like photography and painting) out of its curriculum. This restructuring makes it pretty clear that many began to recognize the need to teach fine arts and applied arts differently. So, if some of the founding institutions for graphic design in the United States can recognize that graphic design shouldn’t be conflated with painting/animation/drawing, why can’t others?

The Part Where I Get A Little Annoying

I would not be writing this if I did not get a graphic design education. My degree is a Bachelor of Science in Design (Graphic Design) from Arizona State University. Within the program, we coloquially use the term Visual Communication Design (VCD) for both the undergraduate and graduate programs. I know it’s not uncommon for institutions to offer a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design (it is an applied art, after all), but I think I reaped an indescribable amount of benefit from a BSD. When projects seemed very abstract and based in problem solving, instructors repeatedly told us, “Remember, this is a Bachelor of Science.” The science, theory, and history behind visual communication. The curriculum must justify that designation.

For the first two years of my undergrad, I did not generate a single portfolio-worthy project that would strongly showcase my hirable skills as a designer. For four semesters, I learned nothing but theory. By stripping good design down to its barest essentials, by starting with the most basic principles of color, value, and shape established by Swiss pioneers of design, students all begin on the same baseline. Everybody learns technical program skills, communication skills, and soft skills from the ground up.

Minus snapshots of process: An entire semester of completed work from my first studio class
Minus snapshots of process: An entire semester of completed work from my sophomore letterform studio
Minus snapshots of process: An entire semester of completed work from my sophomore typography studio

So much of a good design education is about those soft skills. Technical ability in Adobe Illustrator is necessary, yes, but succeeding professionally relies on you as an individual. How do you learn to advocate for your ideas? When told, “walk me through your process of designing this”, how should you respond? How do you communicate your needs and limits to a client paying you for your services? What questions should you ask a client when trying to understand their vision? What does your workflow look like, from the conception of an idea to its completed deliverable?

I joked with my peers that freshman year felt like The Bird Scene from Nickelodeon’s Victorious (2010). In the episode, Tori is assigned to perform a monologue called “The Bird Scene” for her acting class. Despite her efforts — props and costumes and all — she fails it twice. After her final attempt and failure, she confidently expresses how hard she worked and how proud she is of her performance despite her teacher’s disapproval. Therein lies her passing grade; she has to explore her own perspective and creativity, justify it, and take pride in it.

Rewiring an 18-year-old’s brain to accept limited, abstract instructions and no examples is tough. American public school is highly structured: learn a lesson, complete homework and materials to exercise your knowledge on the lesson, take a quiz on the lesson, study multiple lessons, take a test to demonstrate your completed knowledge. Entering college and spending most of my time in a studio environment (even when my freshman classes were online due to the pandemic), my understanding of How To Learn Good had to change. There were no tests. No lessons to take notes on. There was a syllabus in 12pt Courier New and a 22x22cm square piece of Bristol board. By nature, it was virtually impossible for one to bullshit their way through VCD studio. If you were trying to, it quickly showed in your work and your attitude when speaking to your instructors.

An intense emphasis on years of theory before years of practice is very valuable in a design education and sets it apart from a fine art. Theory is still the backbone of a good piece of fine art, absolutely, but it’s the entire skeleton when it comes to its counterpart. Bad use/understanding of theory in applied arts has major consequences. Poor graphic design could ruin a company’s image and force them out of business due to poor sales. Poor industrial design could create faulty products and containers on store shelves. Poor architecture creates structural instability runs a serious risk of injuring people.

Rather, The Same Side Of Two Different Coins

I don’t want to make it seem like fine art is “less valuable” because it seemingly lacks a function— that’s absolutely not true. Art is necessary and human and an essential part of our history. Almost every graphic designer I know was drawn to the profession because they were a crafty or artistic kid — myself included. If I walked into a museum, looked at a beautiful series of paintings with profound backstories on the plaques, and said, “Yeah, but what’s the point?” everybody would look at me like I’m fucking crazy. The point is you. You are viewing someone’s creative expression and being provoked to think about it. You are witnessing someone’s experience of life. To say that such a thing “lacks a function” is genuinely fucking crazy.

“How to Look at Art” by Lynda Barry

I think that clearly drawing a line between graphic design and visual fine arts could maybe even help, if only a little, with job creep. Graphic designers should not be expected to generate detailed illustrations. Visual artists should not be expected to design booklets and websites. If we collectively view these two industries as overlapping but distinct things, it may allow professionals to do what they do best (and collaborate with the other industry) without having to juggle skills they should not be expected to have.

By conflating two related but distinct fields of study, especially in an academic setting, it does a disservice to students studying on either side. There are unique but universal values to fine art and applied art. Teaching them as such creates better artists, better designers, and better overall professionals. Creatives must learn by doing, and that doing needs to be relevant, modernized, and well-thought out in a way that serves both the student and the industry they’re about to enter. Every student in a creative field deserves to be proud of the education they got; instructors, directors, deans, and those responsible for curriculum must see to it that every student earns that right through a solid education.

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Avalon Days
Avalon Days

Written by Avalon Days

abby (she/her) ; online creative, fiction writing, star wars probably

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