Educating about Graphic Design

Does technology play a role in helping to educate individuals about graphic design? If so, how? If not, could it?

Well…have you ever seen a TV commercial ad for Adobe Photoshop? I haven’t. Not once. I’ve never seen it advertised anywhere. Seems odd, huh? How do people even know about this product? In fact, how do SO many people know the product by name?

Now that I’m thinking about it, this has gotten me really confused. I mean, graphic designers work almost 100% in the technological realm. They might sketch ideas out, and then scan them onto their respective computers and edit away. But I’m pretty sure that’s their extent of non­-technological work. So it’s just plain weird that Adobe isn’t advertising on TV, on radio, in newspapers, online. I’ve just never seen an ad. In fact, I just got really curious because I thought for a moment that Macbook Pros came with the Adobe suite already installed (I just have a regular Macbook). So I went to go check this out on the Apple site. Here’s what I found out – Mac likes to boast at how awesome it is – and man, are they awesome. But I’ve heard rumors that Adobe design programs were made for Macs originally, and maybe that’s why the Macbook Pro pages writes,

“The combination of the powerful Intel Core 2 Duo processor, advanced NVIDIA graphics, and the stunning LED-backlit display makes the new MacBook Pro the perfect notebook for creating with the iLife suite of applications or Adobe Creative Suite.” http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/graphics.html

Hey! Look at that! Some advertising in a technological setting for Adobe!

I knew it had to exist somewhere.

But, it’s important to note that Apple doesn’t really reference what the Adobe Creative Suite is or anything of the sort. It’s not exactly educating people on what the product does, what it’s used for, etc – it’s just a name-drop.

So how in the world does everyone just know what it is? I honestly don’t have an answer for this. I’m not even sure I know when I first heard what the programs were. I just know that all my life I’ve heard phrases like, “Oh, that was photoshopped” or “That’s so fake – it was definitely airbrushed.” Well, mainstream media photoshop and airbrush models and images to further “perfect” them – to intrigue us as consumers, make us want something and jump through all the hoops (AKA buy, buy, buy) to get there. So everyone just knows what it is. Maybe not everyone knows how its done, but they know it can be done. They know that some technology is working behind every image, every TV ad. (And yet, so many people still fall for it – admittedly, it happens to me, too.)

This brings me back to a point I believe I have reiterated in almost every post so far – graphic design is more pervasive in our world than we may even know. Sometimes we forget it exists and we fall prey to the fake images and fake people that are made – but hey, according to my computer graphics professor, everything we do in that class is to edit until we can make someone else believe it’s true. And because of that, we forget. We forget that graphic design is in every part of our lives. We might not know how it’s done, but there it is.