1 - Introduction

Why is COP important?

Context is important to graphic design more than any other creative profession as it's about communication therefore understand historical, technological, social, political and economic contexts is key to developing my practice any further.

COP helps to understand what graphic design is. It's :

• communication

• commercial

• reproducible and distributable

• juxtapositions and integrations of word and/or image

Any graphic design piece will do one or more of :

• inform

• persuade

• decorate

• phatic (expressions which have social meanings e.g emoji's - expanding communication)

Some broader functions of graphic design are : 

• social reproductions

• promote contest social order

• promote or contest values and ideologies

• form of visual culture

• constitution of cultures and values

It's also important to understand the COP of design as a guide to where you want to take your career. e.g Dalton Maag designing a font for BBC. BBC has a brand persona of British nationalism and therefore it's worth questioning do you want to support their fascism by creating a font for them? Or would it be okay as it's a large platform and you may be aiding by increasing accessibility for their audience.

The Briefs

• 2 x 1250 Word essays on topics related to graphic design from table on eStudio.

• A visual investigation in response to essays.

• To populate the blog with designers, specific pieces of work, confusions and answers, ideas, reflections, etc.

The Essay Ideas

• What is advertising and how does it persuade? How concepts are communicated? Does it for example use a shock factor? 

Advertising would be my initial choice for the essay as it's something I'm very interested in an industry I might want to work in in the future. However it's still important and interesting for graphic design as I believe it really focuses in one the communication part of design as it's used to sell a message and therefore needs thorough understanding on how it does that.

• Publishing and Editorial. What impact has the internet and digital media had on the publishing industry?

This topic would be interesting to explore as I can question is there is still a need for the physical? e.g Magazines, newspapers, zines. Why is some physical media more popular than other? e.g Zines over newspapers. Is online publishing on the rise and is that because of accessibility or is all these preferences because of trends and censorship? Are zines easier to publish? etc