You can see the work of graphic designers everywhere you look. But what do graphic designers usually DO?

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Graphic designers use a combination of shapes and forms, words and images, to communicate visually to a specific audience. Think about something that caught your eye recently — a sign, magazine ad, or billboard. What made you stop and look? The worlds or the image? The message? The colors or the size? Whatever it was, it fulfilled the graphic designer's purpose: to communicate with you in a way that clarifies an idea, stirs your interest, or catches your eye. The graphic designer's goal is to get a message across that you'll remember and act upon.

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All graphic design has a purpose or a function. Often its purpose is to promote a service or product. Always its intention is to say something, inform, inspire and influence your choices and your actions.

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Graphic design, like any of the design professions, is based on human needs, or "problems," and their solutions. As a graphic designer, you might be given problems like these to solve:

• Design a poster advertising a play at a local theater

• Develop a brochure or web page promoting a travel destination

• Make a logo or a sign for a new organization or business

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To come up with a design solution, graphic designers define an overall theme or direction, combine various visual and verbal elements through sketching and visualization, submit ideas to a client, listen to client responses and address them, and eventually prepare a final solution for printing or broadcast.

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The success of any design depends on how well the designer researches, thinks about, and chooses the elements that help communicate the desired message.

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