Critical Understanding : Graphic Design & Advertising

Advertising has long been recognised as an important cultural force by mass media and cultural studies scholars. Graphic design, despite its comparable ubiquity, has rarely been the subject of this kind of critique. The emphasis has been overwhelmingly on textual manifestations of graphics, advertisements and campaigns and, occasionally, on their reception. 

In the interest of working towards a fuller account of the overall circulation and reproduction of an increasingly commercial contemporary culture. By paying attention to the framing of current debates about accountability and social or corporate responsibility within this profession, the essay has explored the positive and negative effects of commodity feminism in relation to graphic design and more specifically in advertising. Advertising and design are readily distinguishable from other economic institutions because of their declared expertise in creating specifically cultural forms of communication. Further, these practices rely on the skills of cultural intermediaries: individuals whose job it is to develop these forms to mediate between, or more properly, articulate, the realms of production and consumption.

Graphic designers, it seems, enjoy much greater latitude for personal expression than ad creatives or at least enjoy a professional culture, that supports debate and dissent through a variety of activities, and recognises non-commercial design projects as legitimate forms of expression. While the designers may claim that advertising is a creative practice entirely subsumed by commercial constraints, they also recognise that their own professional activities involve only a limited degree of subjective control. Personal and non-commercial projects, often indirectly funded by income from business clients, appear to provide a more reliable means to creative fulfilment.