Before & After’s Graphics for Business

Foreword

Graphic design has many definitions. It is sometimes used to mean decoration, as in decorating a birthday cake or a room. A decoration is an add-on, an embellishment made to delight the eye. Decoration is not essential. The cake will taste the same with or without its decoration.

To some, graphic design is a means of self-expression. “I am an arteest; I make design.” Design of this sort is usually done for personal enrichment, like painting. You see on Web logs—or blogs—a lot of self-expressive graphic design. You also see it on T-shirts and even in spray paint on the sides of railroad cars.

Design on a computer is often used to mean production, that is, the point-and-click of making graphics software do something. To say, “I designed ...