Question: what I will learn and how will I apply it?

After reading the preface to Megg’s History of Graphic Design ¹ and perusing the book’s photos and reading the captions I came to realize what this course may offer me.

I hope that this course offers me more insight in to how to communicate better with my community and my management and peers at work, for example as when I assist in the design of business information reports. My work involves the concept of “Big Data” (large quantity of data that may or may not be related) and how to communicate this information more effectively and to make it meaningful to our clients. So I ask myself – how may an understanding of the history of communication and the evolution and need for graphic design help me?

I have always been interested in history and culture. I have studied Chinese, Spanish, Russian and English languages primarily. The photographs of hieroglyphs, old manuscripts and books, scrolls to billboards signage, and posters indicate that we all need to communicate our thoughts – I think the need to express one’s self is at the foundation of graphic design. How we humans have achieved the fulfillment our need to communicate is found within the technical aspects of pictures, symbols, and writing, and what these ultimately mean to civilization.

As I progress though the course I look forward to learning more about the communications evolution, and drawing conclusions on this topic that will assist me in my future endeavors.

1. Phillip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis, Megg’s History of Graphic Design, 5^th Ed. (New Jersey: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2012).