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Due to the complexity of talents and skills contained in the broad graphic design industry, the title serves as a broad categorical term only, and should not be assumed to define a specific profession. It is a mistake to allow the title to define our services to clients, because it does very little to lead a client directly to a designer who can accommodate their specific needs; I have often encountered clients who are at their wits' end, having gone through several designers and wasted both time and money before finding a professional who understands what they need, and who can supply design work compatible with a specific reproduction process.

There was a time - not that long ago - when design studios for advertising firms and publishing houses categorised specific tasks in the design process, and would allocate each task to a specialist, resulting in job descriptions such as layout artist, graphic artist, compositor, typographer, finished artist and prepress manager. With the advent of digital technology and desktop-publishing programs, many of these tasks have been consolidated and handled by one or two personnel, rather than six or seven, and the specific stages of a design job have blurred at the edges, making it difficult to define where one task ends and another begins.

It seems obvious then, to accommodate this trend by coining a title that encompasses all of these tasks and others - hence "graphic designer". However, the title does not take into account that design for a particular medium such as printwork involves specific tasks that are not necessarily inclusive of design in other production media such as website development, product design, visual display or even signwriting. More to the point, while various sectors of the industry all require stages such as layout, finished art and so on, the methods used, and the skills required, to complete such stages are often vastly different between sectors. Yet, all sectors require specialists who assume the title of "graphic designer".

The only way to define any one designer, is to emphasise the specific skills with which, and media in which, that designer works. This of course means that establishing an accurate, all-encompassing title is most likely a futile endeavour. The only conclusion may be to accept that, for example, a designer in print is simply not of the same profession as a designer in digital media.

There are benefits to defining professions within graphic design, rather than using "graphic designer" itself as a profession's title. Further, there may well be great advantages in returning our focus to promoting specific skills such as layout, rendering, finished art and so on.

Indeed, the problem with allowing such sub-catagories of the design process to lose their prominence, is that as the current generation of employers slowly fades out, the replacement employers are not even aware that such specific skills exist in their own right, or indeed that such skills are needed in their own art departments. So when the time comes to hire a new designer, the employers can do no more than look for someone who has broad generic skills, and this results in just about every vacancy notice emphasising the need for applicants who are "competent in Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark..." and so on.

As most graduates from any design course - from the best to the worst colleges - are going to be competent in mainstream software, such a skill list does nothing to prevent the employer being inundated by a horde of applicants who are plainly unsuitable, making it far less likely that the right applicant will be found, and in the case of less experienced employers, more likely that the wrong applicant will be given the job, without the employer or employee ever realising why it is that their firm can't get an edge on their competitors.

If we can educate both practitioners and employers about specific skills required in different sections of the design community, then we will eventually have employers who can look past such elementary skills as software competency, and focus more on the specific technical or creative skills required.

But we need to make it clear that graphic design is extremely diverse in its requirements depending on its application. We need to understand this ourselves, and I don't think we really do. And if we as designers can't work this out, then we can't blame the employers for their own vagueness and perceived lack of respect for design professionals.

It is up to us to educate ourselves and ultimately the employers as to what constitutes the best designer for the job on offer. And we have to be strident in this goal, because we have competition in the form of software companies who are constantly in the employers' ears, advising them as to what's required to run a competent design department - and as far as Adobe and Macromedia are concerned, it has everything to do with the latest version of Photoshop or Freehand, and little to do with specific design skills.

For a manager with no direct background in design who is feeling the pressure to keep a company viable, it must be very tempting to believe the hype meted out by these companies, who insist that you need the latest graphics software "to stay ahead of the field". It may often be the case that many small firms simply buy the software and then look for a designer whose CV says that they have a pretty good idea how to use the applications. There is an obsession with software and computer technology that has built upon itself to the extent that the basic essential skills of design - both practical and cognitive - are being overlooked, both by employers and designers alike.

It is partly due to our willingness to be lead by such industry trends, and our tendency to forget the essential aspects of industry practice, that has reduced the perception of our complex, varied and specialised skill-sets to little more than a vague, generic job description that is inclusive of anyone from the printshop receptionist down the road to the senior designer in the country's top advertising firm.

Marc Morrow is an AGDA QLD member, and a prolific user of the AGDA Forums. His views are not AGDA official views, but are enthusiastically welcomed as an essential part of the Australian graphic design community that AGDA is here to support! Copyright 2004 Marc Morrow.

"I found this article particularly interesting - I've been wondering what to put on my next round of b-cards, I don't call myself a 'graphic designer' I've never been comfortable with the term, for me it's kind of pretentious. Perhaps it's a term that gets bandied around to make people feel good, in compensation for working really long hours and not getting paid very much. For me 'graphic designer' relates to an idealised, external perception of what the job/role is, more like what you learn at a graphic design school - no budgets, no real deadlines, responding to a brief and designing with complete hypothetical freedom.

My design outcomes have always had some degree of input and overall direction from the client, the client dictates (or designs) the outcome of their project as much as I do, by way of the 'low risk' commercial restrictions, the brief, the budget and deadlines they have - no one has ever said to me 'here is a brief, now go away and take as long as you like and come up with something wonderful and extraordinary, spare no expense and come back the completed visuals ready for us t take from there and mass produce and you won't have to worry about it after that OK? oh and here's another project just like the last one for you' - for me, this would be 'graphic design' - what I do is different.

I'm a sales person, an account manger, an accountant, a tax agent, a business/comercial/marketing visual communications designer for print & web, mac operator, computer networking tech, pre press co-ordinator sometimes even a courier and so on.

Maybe I'll just put om my next b-card 'graphics professional' or 'visual communications professional'.??"

"Great insight Marc.

Sometimes, the double-edged sword, is as designers (and opportunists) we tend to say, "yeah, sure i can do that" - so as not to lose the opportunity... whether we are experienced or not.

Being honest (for our industry, & our long-term individual benefit) is often counterbalanced (albeit negatively) by our human nature of 'greed'.

Money talks louder (especially as a short-term consideration) than an often logical long-term benefit.

How do we overcome it in our Capatalist system?
I'm not sure."