Analog + Digital Synthesis
Using Physical Materials to Form and Inform Visual Communication
Abstract
Most graphic design work today starts and ends on the computer. Digital tools are firmly embedded in the contemporary design process, but are not the only (or the best) tools at our disposal. The synthesis of old and new, analog and digital, and hand- and computer-based methods provides designers with an opportunity to work beyond the constraints of the computer and take advantage of the aesthetic effects that actual materials bring to visual communication.
Designers can use physical materials and processes as a way of both forming and informing visual communication. Materials have the power to communicate ideas through their aesthetic qualities, even when words are not present. When the connotation of a word and the associations inherent in a material intersect, communication can be amplified exponentially.
Digital tools open up and overcome the limits of physical materials, allowing the imperfection of materials to enter the space of the design, and providing designers with a means of abstracting and reproducing their physical properties. When we filter materiality through digital technology into applied graphic design, we control and edit the aesthetic effects of material traces. We are able to obscure the literal sense of a material while holding on to its markmaking qualities and associations. The resulting forms display a dynamic contrast – the crisp contrasting the organic, the illusion of materiality in a reproducible, two-dimensional surface, and an honesty in the way the images were made that is different than most Photoshop-heavy design created today.
This paper argues that when designers resist the passivity of digital tools and take a more active involvement in their process, bringing the aesthetic effects of working materially into the realm of the digital, they have the power to humanize mass media and visual communication. Ultimately, analog and digital synthesis is beneficial to the end product of visual communication.
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