How the Internet and Digital Culture Impacted on the Practice of Graphic Design

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HOW THE INTERNET AND DIGITAL CULTURE IMPACTED ON THE PRACTICE OF GRAPHIC DESIGN INTRODUCTION In today’s modern world, it could be said that most forms of mass media communication are produced, and increasingly, distributed digitally. These forms of media, as Charlie Gere (2008. pp. 13-14) explains are ‘beginning to converge with digital forms, such as the Internet, the World Wide Web, and video games, to produce a seamless digital mediascape.’ This essay will explore and discuss how this metastasis from traditional methods of mass media communication have impacted on the practice of graphic design, arguing both the positive and negative impact that digital culture has had upon this discipline. Arguments are to be structured around key topics such as historical perspective on pre-internet communicative practices and the impact of graphic design related social spaces. Furthermore, there will be analysis on the transition of graphic design from old media to new media and its state of continuity, the role of the designer within online simulation, and finally, to interaction; discussing how design has progressed from traditional methods and their continued orientation towards digital interaction, and the impact this has on graphic design as a discipline. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Early communicative practices relied heavily on the letter to transmit a message from a source to its destination. Electronic communication only became possible, with the commercialization of Charles Wheatstone and Fothergill Cooke’s electronic telegraph, circa 1830. While not the first electronic communication device of its kind, this five needle telegraph was, however, the first successful electronic communications device. First put into service on the newly developing railways systems this soon expanded further to sending public telegrams between London and West Drayton

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