What is Graphic Design? (& Types, History & Examples)

What is Graphic Design? (& Types, History & Examples)

Written by:
Chloe West

Oct 18, 2021
An illustration showcasing different elements of graphic design.

When you think of graphic design, what crosses your mind? It could be a logo, a digital marketing graphic, illustration, a magazine cover or something else entirely. And you know what? You would be right!

Graphic design comes in many different shapes and sizes. What they all have in common is that they’re designed to communicate visually, and are typically done on a computer or tablet.

We’ve put together this comprehensive guide to help you learn more about graphic design and how it’s morphed into what it is today.

Let’s get started.

 

Table of Contents

 

What is Graphic Design?

Graphic design is the process of creating visual content that helps to communicate messages with an audience. The art of visual communication is essential, especially for brands looking to connect with their target audience, and graphic design is the perfect solution.

A collage of examples of graphic design.
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Brands take advantage of graphic design in their logos, marketing materials, ads, website graphics, and even internal documents and email communications.

To further understand how graphic design works, you need to understand the different elements that make up a design. These graphic design elements include:

  • Color
  • Typography
  • Line
  • Shape
  • Size
  • Space
  • Texture
  • Hierarchy

There are also a number of principles that graphic designers need to follow in order for their designs to be effective and grab attention. You may have heard these called Gestalt design principles.

Some of these principles include:

  • Simplicity
  • Proximity
  • Continuity
  • Symmetry

Putting together all of the different elements and principles can turn a design into a professional-looking graphic. 

While graphic designers by trade have often been trained on these principles, having a basic understanding can help anyone with little to no design skills create an eye-catching visual design.

Now that we’ve covered some graphic design basics, let’s dive into why graphic design is such an important skill.

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Why is Graphic Design Important?

Graphic design is important for a lot of reasons. First, it’s the basis of every logo design you’ve ever seen. Second, think about all of the social media content and advertisements you see every day. Yep, all graphic design.

In addition, graphic design is a part of book cover design, magazine page layouts, product design, apparel design and more.

Here are a few statistics that help further our point of just how essential the graphic arts are.

An infographic sharing 6 essential graphic design statistics.

 

A Brief History of Graphic Design (Infographic)

Graphic design isn’t just a new age thing. In fact, graphic design has been around for thousands of years — of course, it’s looked pretty different throughout the years.

We’ve put together an infographic detailing the history of graphic design, and how it’s turned into what we know today.

An infographic showcasing the history of graphic design.
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9 Graphic Design Types You Need to Know

You should have a pretty good grasp on the basis of graphic design and where it came from. Now let’s talk a little bit about the types of graphic design that you know today. Some of these, you may not have even realized are graphic design.

Let’s dig in.

Type #1: Brand Identity Design

The first type of graphic design is brand identity design. This alone is the most important type for you, as a business professional, to know.

While your company will likely use a variety of these different types, no company can succeed without a brand identity.

A brand identity consists of:

  • Logo
  • Color palette
  • Fonts/typography
  • Imagery style
  • Patterns/shapes
  • Brand guidelines

You can see an example of brand guidelines holding all of these brand identity elements below.

A brand guidelines template available to customize in Visme.
Customize this template and make it your own!Edit and Download

Graphic designers tend to specialize in just a couple of different types of design. Brand identity designers have to be well-versed in graphic design trends, what types of designs resonate with customers and more.

Type #2: Marketing & Advertising Design

The next type of graphic design we’re going to cover is marketing and advertising design. This specialization focuses on the graphics we see on social media, websites and advertisements, both online and offline.

All of the billboards you pass by while driving down the interstate, all of the brochures you see at the coffee shop counter and all of the business social media graphics you see while scrolling through your feeds are all part of marketing & advertising graphic design.

Here’s a sample template of a marketing graphic you might see teasing an online course.

A social media graphic template available to customize in Visme.
Customize this template and make it your own!Edit and Download

There is an endless number of marketing materials that can be created to promote a brand, and many designers specialize in this type of graphic design.

Type #3: User Interface Design

User interface (UI) design focuses more on designing actual websites, apps, software and other online programs. 

This specialization needs the designer to understand how to design a visually appealing program while also ensuring that it’s easy for the user to navigate and understand how to use.

Our UI team has worked hard to create an easy-to-use interface for Visme’s design tool so that both new and veteran users are able to get the most out of their experience.

A screenshot of Visme's user interface.

Type #4: Product Design

Product design involves creating the overall design of products and how they’re presented to the audience. This can be anything from t-shirt prints and bottles to the actual design of a watering can or coffee mug.

Take these products from Frank Body for example. The bottle shapes are all designed to fit each type of skin care, but a designer also had to create the designs that are on each of the bottles or packages.

A screenshot of product designs from Frank Body's website.

Product designers have to make sure that the products they create work well for the end user. Sometimes this involves reinventing the wheel on products that people already use and love while other times it can be helping to design something completely new.

Type #5: Publication Design

The next type of graphic design we’ll cover is publication design. Publication design encompasses the design of things like magazines, ebooks, white papers, reports, books, newsletters, brochures and more.

Publication designers must be able to create a visually appealing design that is still readable and ensures the information on each page flows well.

In this regard, it’s not all about the design. The actual words and content must come first, with the design only accentuating it.

Here’s an example of an easy-to-read and well-designed publication. The cover spotlights an illustration and headlines of what readers will find inside, while the inner pages do a great job of visualizing the content and calling out main points while still ensuring the copy is the star of the show.

An example of a great publication design.

To try your hand at publication design, you can customize this ebook template and share your own information with your audience in a visually appealing way.

An ebook template available to customize in Visme.
Customize this template and make it your own!Edit and Download

Type #6: Packaging Design

Another important type of graphic design is packaging. When you’re selling something that many other companies sell, you need to find some way to stand out — a lot of times your packaging can help you do just that.

Whether you appeal to a certain audience with minimalistic packaging designs or you get creative, having packaging that pops is key.

Take a look at this toilet paper roll packaging. Getting creative with it can make people want to choose your product over others, simply because it’s cute or it’s different.

An example of creative product packaging design.

Packaging designers are faced with the challenge of finding unique ways to present their products so consumers choose them over a competitor.

Type #7: Typeface Design

Think of all the fonts you see on a daily basis. Look at the fonts that are used just within this blog post. Someone had to design all of these.

Every single font, even the most basic ones like Arial and Times New Roman, were created by a typeface designer. 

Both fonts in this font pair below were also designed by someone who specializes in creating typefaces.

A font pair available in Visme.

In this day and age, we typically see typeface design used when brands want to create their own font. For example, Netflix’s logo is in their branded Netflix Sans font, and Samsung has their own SamsungOne font.

Type #8: Motion Graphic Design

Motion graphic or animation design is another type of design that you often see in videos and GIFs.

For example, take a look at this YouTube video where we unveiled our new brand mascot.

Designing animations or motion graphics requires special tools and the ability to create something that moves.

However, if you want to start small, you can use Visme’s video maker to create a motion video by customizing the template below.

A motion graphic video template available to customize in Visme.
Customize this template and make it your own!Edit and Download

Type #9: Illustration Design

The last type of graphic design we’re going to cover is illustrative design. 

This type of graphic design typically is done in professional programs like Adobe using a stylus and touchscreen to draw out the elements and turn them into a digital design. However, every designer has their own style and process.

You’ve seen this style a lot in our blog graphics. We incorporate illustrative design into many of our blog headers to help them stand out.

Illustration of a person designing an email.

Illustration is a popular design trend that likely won’t be going anywhere for awhile, especially given how unique and different illustrations can become.

 

Over to You

Ready to try your hand at graphic design? You don’t have to be a designer to create something great. With a template and an easy-to-use design tool like Visme, you can easily design beautiful visual content no matter what level of design skills you’ve mastered.

Create stunning designs in minutes with Visme.

  • Choose from dozens of professionally designed templates
  • Add and alter icons, colors, fonts, images and more
  • Customize anything to fit your brand image and content needs

Sign up. It's free.

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    About the Author

    Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.