Graphic Design and the Next Big Thing (Blog 6)

1.
The limitations of design are based purely on the necessity to convey a specific message to be vehicle that bring meaning to an audience. Contrary to what the Graphic Design and the Next Big Thing article was imagining about design being judged on the message that it conveys, design is judged by its ability to communicate a certain message clearly and concisely. This limits the design to serving that message with all it's aesthetic and design elements being present for only one purpose: to support the message.

2.
New media, web and flash specifically, provides a new direction in design by allowing a grater capacity for interactivity. Interactivity allows for the design to capitalize on playing with layering and juxtaposition of images and text in real time to portray a deeper meaning to the viewer. Though the Graphic Design and the Next Big Thing reading may be slightly out of date it is on point when it says, "If there were ever an opportunity for graphic design to be more involved with content, the World Wide Web is it," because the web is an evolution of print that gives designers the ability to make the viewer move and interact with content. The ability to interact with content gives the designers the power to compress design into a succinct interface rather than just a layout, a prime example of this can be seen here. This website features a designers portfolio compressed into the space of a browser window with the help of the interaction provided to him by the use of flash.

3.
I don't think so, it seems that people are just trying to integrate different styles in a random fashion, which may or may not yield effective results. The reason that reintegrating different styles is not effective is that they may be being combined without deep enough understanding being present to predict the outcome, one such failed attempt is the recent Comcast commercial. This commercial combines live action with extremely unrealistic isometric projections of a 3d environment, which creates a style so distracting that it takes all of the viewer's attention away from the message. (not to forget the fact that this commercial doesn't remotely resemble any of the previous Comcast commercial styles) So perhaps we need to explore individual fields more, so that more meaningful integration can occur in the future.

4.
The next big thing in design is interface design with a modular approach. Most popular websites like Facebook, Gmail and iGoogle use a modular design, allowing the user to be able to customize what they see in the interface, such as weather forecast module, a calendar module or a module showing the latest videos on Youtube. (which is also customizable since it's designed with a modular approach) This approach to interface design can also be seen in the two most popular operating systems Mac OS and Windows Vista, with their widgets and gadgets, respectively. I think this is the next biggest trend because it allows for customization, which appeals to the consumer.