Status Report: Graphic Design in Australia

Graphic Design is Australia is in a pretty sorry state and has been for a long time. This is where I must state upfront that it’s not because there is a lack of highly qualified Graphic Designers doing exemplary work. Well, there’s not loads of them but the creative agencies, studios and individuals that reside here could easily create an exciting and cohesive graphic identity for Australia to show the world if they were given the chance. But there’s this underlying feeling that there’s a lack of respect for the profession and even worse, a lack of interest.

Not Another Bloody Graphic Designer

You see, somewhere along the way Australian business got bored with Graphic Designers. They got bored with the ponderous approach required in forming cohesive visual identities. They got bored all the rules and restrictions they were consistently asked to adhere to. They became interested only in the immediacy of the message/s they wanted to to get a across. Not even the audience was as important.

This lead to Australian business becoming seduced by the language of Marketing. Marketing in Australia has become a way for business to thrust their self-interest on the often complacent Australian public and cloak it in the most amazing kind of jargon (marketing buzzwords like ‘Gen Y’,’ iGen’ still proliferate discussions on digital media and the like). In Australia consumers are rarely ‘catered for’, more likely they are to be ‘coerced into’ and said coercion is rarely subtle.

Many Graphic Design agencies have coped with this wide spread disdain for their profession by manoeuvring around the term ‘Graphic Design’. In Australia you will find studios, agencies or whatever calling themselves all sorts of thing such as ‘Creative Agency’, ‘Branding Studio’, ‘Visual Communication Group’, or just avoiding mentioning the term completely (the smart ones wear it like the badge of pride that it should be).

Just Get On With It, Mate

In the early 90s, the Apple Mac and the advent of ‘desktop publishing’ laid ruin to the perception of what it had meant to be a Graphic Designer. It was a crushing blow to an industry that had only just begun to feel comfortable in it’s own skin. With persistence and skill, many Graphic Designers managed to claw back some dignity for their profession.

This has been doubly hard in Australia because of the D.I.Y. mentality that permeates Australian culture, stemming from the idea that this was a nation that was built by the sweat and blood of it’s inhabitants (even though many Australians now recognise that there was a culture on this continent before the English settlers made their highly dubious mark). Why hire someone else when you have all the resources you need at the end of your fingertips.

The sense of isolation from mainland Europe that many Anglo-Saxon Australians still feel only helped to compound this notion. So you get people undertaking their own design work instead of seeking professional advice due to about two centuries of being your own expert and a stubborn unwillingness to ask for help. This attitude has only helped to muddy the definition of what Graphic Design is in Australia. Recent times have seen a proliferation of self-styled ‘image makers’ claiming the title which are, in turn, supported by a range of websites and magazines which I’m not going to name and shame right now. I’ll save that for another time.

At the other end of the spectrum you get a lot of well educated Designers over intellectualising the mechanics of their profession, further distancing themselves from the general public they should be helping service and the businesses they should be connecting with.

The Ire of the Beholder

I should summarise somehow, I guess. The most frustrating thing about this current situation is that there is a thirst for innovation and new ideas in design in Australia, exemplified in the exciting range of architectural and interior design projects that get commissioned and the many Design Festivals and Design Markets that Australians enjoy. But when you look around at everyday Graphic Design, the stuff that people come in contact with on a hourly basis you get the impression of a nation that doesn’t really care how it is perceived. As far as first impressions go, and despite the best efforts of this hard working band of designers, there’s a lot of visual noise and precious little actual substance.

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Press Publish are currently in the process of helping highlight the many creative practitioners based in Australia that are producing work of an international standard through the AustraliaDesign.info website. You can view the ‘beta-test-preview’ site by visiting [australiandesign.info].