Monday, January 21, 2008

Fine Art vs. Graphic Design



Fine art comes from the concept of final cause . The object created was the sole purpose of the excersise. Fine art does not have to communicate its idea to anyone more than its creator or those who follow its principles. Artists who create such works often have full control of their projects. Therefore, fine art is produced for beauty rather than utility. It is thought that fine art is not made for money.

The essence of graphic design is to give order to information, and form to ideas. Visual intricacy and creativity applied to text and imagery is what defines it. Graphic design was primarily created for the transfer of knowledge. Most times, graphic designers work together to form a single product. Individual ideas give way to clearer understanding for the masses. Contrary to fine art, graphic designers can probably make a better living.

In my quest to find the differences between fine art and graphic design, I stumbled upon one significant idea. The two concepts relay information, but in two different ways. In my opinion, graphic design is for the masses. To my disappointment, not everybody wants to learn. Most people are more concerned with unimportant matters of evryday life. They are not interested in higher thought. They need to get their work done. They need to get paid. They need quick answers. Graphic design provides this need. Images, color, and text are laid out to easily communicate an idea, person, place, or thing. Once you see it, you understand it. Everything is provided for you. There is no need for contemplation. To add further emphasis, the design must not be good if you cannot grasp the idea immediately.
On the other hand, fine art takes a highly developed mind to grasp and understand. Information is almost encoded in the object. One must think about what they are observing. Fine art takes time and patience. In my opinion, this is the reason most people don't care for it. A good example of this idea might be the images that I chose to place in my entry. Can you tell what the first image stands for? One simple study of it tells you that it identifies with a joint restoration and reconstructive center in S.A., Tx. Simple, right? Now look at the second image. What is it saying? This one doesn't just come out and say its a non-objective study on complamentary colors with various levels of saturation/contrast(just guessing!). The average joe is saying this image is lame and that they could have made the same thing for half the price. There is no literal starting point for understanding the second image unless one has studied art/color. Most people haven't.

2 comments:

FlowerGirl said...

I do believe that is the reason why artist do art. it's for the simple fact that they do it for the beauty that they are creating not for the money but money sounds good too. a graphic design is from a product that people are tring to communicate to people that will be good for them and fine art is artwork that the artist creates not to get a point across...well sometimes it does but most of the time no. they create to love the work they do and also like for example for me i do it to keep on watching myself improve because i compare my art to previous art that i had already done.

Stephanie Lewis said...

"In my quest to find the differences between fine art and graphic design, I stumbled upon one significant idea. The two concepts relay information, but in two different ways. In my opinion, graphic design is for the masses. To my disappointment, not everybody wants to learn. Most people are more concerned with unimportant matters of evryday life. They are not interested in higher thought. They need to get their work done. They need to get paid. They need quick answers. Graphic design provides this need. Images, color, and text are laid out to easily communicate an idea, person, place, or thing. Once you see it, you understand it. Everything is provided for you. There is no need for contemplation. To add further emphasis, the design must not be good if you cannot grasp the idea immediately." That is a significant idea indeed. This is particularly true since the advent of television and the 30 second commercial.