MULTIMEDIA...

Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, andinteractivity content forms.

Multimedia is usually recorded and played, displayed or accessed by information content processing devices, such as computerized and electronic devices, but can also be part of a live performance. Multimedia (as an adjective) also describes electronic media devices used to store and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media in fine art, but with a broader scope. The term "rich media" is synonymous for interactive multimedia. Hypermedia can be considered one particular multimedia application.

PAGE LAYOUT DESIGN..

Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements (content) on a page. Beginning from early illuminated pages in hand-copied books of the Middle Ages and proceeding down to intricate modern magazine and catalog layouts, proper page design has long been a consideration in printed material. With print media, elements usually consist of type (text), images (pictures), and occasionally place-holder graphics for elements that are not printed with ink such as die/laser cutting, foil stamping or blind embossing.

Since the advent of personal computing, page layout skills have expanded to electronic media as well as print media. Theelectronic page is better known as a graphical user interface (GUI) when interactive elements are included. Page layout forinteractive media overlaps with (and is often called) interface design. This usually includes interactive elements and multimedia in addition to text and still images. Interactivity takes page layout skills from planning attraction and eye flow to the next level of planning user experience in collaboration with software engineers and creative directors.

A page layout may be designed in a rough paper and pencil sketch before producing, or produced during the design process to the final form. Both design and production may be achieved using hand tools or page layout software. Producing the most popular electronic page (the web page) may require knowledge of markup languages along with WYSIWYG editors to compensate for incompatibility between platforms. Special considerations must be made for how the layout of an HTML page will change (reflow) when resized by the end-user. Cascading style sheets are often required to keep the page layout consistent between web browsers.

SKETCH

A sketch (from Ancient Greek σχέδιος - schedios, “‘made suddenly, off-hand’”, from σχεδιάζω - schediazo, “‘to do a thing off-hand^]) is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not intended as a finished work. If in oil paint it is called an oil sketch. In general, a sketch is a quick way to record an idea for later use. Artist's sketches primarily serve as a way to try out different ideas and establish a composition before undertaking a more finished work, especially when the finished work is expensive and time consuming (as in the case of a large painting or fresco). Sketching sharpens an artist's ability to focus on the most important elements of a subject and is a prescribed part of artistic development for students.

Dry media such as pencil or pastel are often preferred due to time constraints, but a quickly done watercolor study or even quickly modeled clay or soft wax can also be considered a 'sketch' in the broader sense of the term. Graphite pencils being a relatively new invention, the artists of the Renaissance could make sketches using the expensive method of a silver stylus on specially prepared paper (known as silverpoint), with results similar to a modern pencil sketch, or, more cheaply, using charcoal, chalk, or pen-and-ink.

Contrary to popular belief, artists often use erasers when drawing; the eraser may be used to remove rough construction lines, or to soften lines for visual effect. The sketchbooks of Leonardo da Vinci and Edgar Degas are two examples of many done by famous artists which have become art objects in their own right, although many pages show more thoughtful studies rather than true sketches

ADVERTISING

Advertising is a form of communication used to help sell products and services. Typically it communicates a message including the name of the product or service and how that product or service could potentially benefit the consumer. However, Advertising does typically attempt to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it is not without social costs. Unsolicited Commercial Email and other forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation. In addition, advertising frequently utilizes psychological pressure (for example, appealing to feelings of inadequacy) on the intended consumer, which may be harmful

TYPOGRAPHY

Typography (Etymology: typos—type, graphos—written) is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing), adjusting the spaces between groups of letters (tracking) and adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning).

Typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic designers, art directors, comic book artists, and clerical workers. Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. Digitization opened up typography to new generations of visual designers and lay users.

VISUAL ART

The visual arts are art forms that focus on the creation of works which are primarily visual in nature, such as traditional plastic arts (drawing, painting,sculpture, architecture, and printmaking), modern visual arts (photography, video, and filmmaking), and design and crafts. Many artistic disciplines (performing arts, language arts, textile arts, and culinary arts) involve aspects of the visual arts as well as other types, so these definitions are not strict.

A changing concept. The current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine arts as well as crafts, but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain and elsewhere at the turn of the 20th century, "visual artist" referred to a person working in the fine arts (such aspainting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art disciplines. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts movement who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms. The movement contrasted with modernists who sought to withhold the high arts from the masses by keeping them esoteric. Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts in such a way that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of art.

OCCUPATION

Graphic design career paths cover all ends of the creative spectrum and often overlap. The main job responsibility of a Graphic Designer is the arrangement of visual elements in some type of media. The main job titles include graphic designer, art director, creative director, and the entry level production artist. Depending on the industry served, the responsibilities may have different titles such as "DTP Associate" or "Graphic Artist," but despite changes in title, graphic design principles remain consistent. The responsibilities may come from or lead to specialized skills such as illustration, photography or interactivedesign.

SKILLS

A graphic design project may involve the stylization and presentation of existing text and either preexisting imagery or images developed by the graphic designer. For example, a newspaper story begins with the journalists and photojournalists and then becomes the graphic designer's job to organize the page into a reasonable layout and determine if any other graphic elements should be required. In a magazine article or advertisement, often the graphic designer or art director will commission photographers or illustrators to create original pieces just to be incorporated into the design layout. Contemporary design practice has been extended to the modern computer, for example in the use of WYSIWYG user interfaces, often referred to asinteractive design, or multimedia design.

GRAPHIC DESIGN HISTORY

While Graphic Design as a discipline has a relatively recent history, graphic design-like activities span the history of humankind: from the caves ofLascaux, to Rome's Trajan's Column to the illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages, to the dazzling neons of Ginza. In both this lengthy history and in the relatively recent explosion of visual communication in the 20th and 21st centuries, there is sometimes a blurring distinction and over-lapping ofadvertising art, graphic design and fine art. After all, they share many of the same elements, theories, principles, practices and languages, and sometimes the same benefactor or client. In advertising art the ultimate objective is the sale of goods and services. In graphic design, "the essence is to give order to information, form to ideas, expression and feeling to artifacts that document human experience.