Typical uses of graphic design consist of identity (logos and branding), internet sites, publications (magazines, newspapers, and books), advertisements and product packaging. For example, a product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements including shapes and color which unify the piece. Composition is among the most essential features of graphic design, especially when making use of pre-existing materials or diverse elements.
History
Even though Graphic Design as a discipline has a reasonably recent history, with the name ‘graphic design” very first coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922, graphic design-like activities span the history of humankind: from the caves of Lascaux, to Rome’s Trajan’s Column to the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, to the dazzling neons of Ginza. In both this lengthy history and inside the fairly recent explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries, there’s sometimes a blurring distinction and over-lapping of advertising art, graphic design and fine art. After all, they share several of the same elements, theories, principles, practices andlanguages, and occasionally the same benefactor or client. In advertising art the ultimate objective is the sale of goods and services. In graphic design, “the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that document human expertise.”