The past 25 years have been rich in terms of graphic design history. We’ve seen monumental changes, and our sister magazine Computer Arts has been there to bring you the lowdown on everything that’s happened in graphic design and illustration. The magazine hit the newsstands in 1995, meaning a quarter of a century has passed, so it seems like the perfect time to take a look at how exactly the industry has evolved in that time.
In this article, we look back at some of the biggest moments, milestones, trends, and developments over the last 25 years, and to provide a broad perspective, we’ve asked the opinion of some well-known industry names.
For further exploration of what’s happening in graphic design, see our post on the hottest graphic design trends, and put them to use with our pick of the best tools for graphic designers.
What has changed since 1995?
“So much has changed since 1995!” says Neville Brody, one of the 20th century’s most famous graphic designers. “While the main changes have been technological – fast and large data transmission, video conferencing, actual-time responses, mass storage, processing capabilities, and portable computing power – the more invisible changes have come through cultural responses, leading to greater empowerment. We have a major self-publishing world now, on every level, and distribution models that allow greater scaling and fundraising.”
In his eyes, though, it’s not all been positive. “Brands have increasingly become homogenous storytellers, competing usually for the same demographic and market using the same tools, mechanisms, and content,” he says. “Media has at the same time become relatively utilitarian and homogenized. Ultimately, creative choices have been reduced to simple patterns and restrictive palettes.” (We explore this further in our post has branding become boring?)
For these reasons, Brody believes that “after 25 years, what’s really needed now is some new break-out thinking and creativity – real risk-taking and rule-challenging”.
01. Computer Arts launches
The fashion world had Vogue. Advertising had Campaigned. Then in 1995, graphic designers and illustrators got their own, must-read ‘Bible’, as issue one of Computer Arts hit the shelves.
“I was a reader right from the start, as there was nothing else like it,” recalls artist and designer Brendan Dawes. Those early issues now provide a snapshot of the time, packed with advice on how to use exotic new tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator. As artist Jon Burgerman puts it: “It was there for professionals and students alike, offering insight and cover discs… like a friendly tutor who’s a bit too cool for college.”
The print magazine is now more geared towards idea generation, conceptual thinking, and design process. As Jamie Ellul, founder of Supple Studio, describes it, “Computer Arts today is a really good resource for reading in-depth project case studies, and hearing opinions from other designers and creatives.”
Marie Claire, FHM, Loaded and NME have closed, but Computer Arts are still going strong, and as influential as ever. As creative director Kyle Wilkinson says: “The number of young designers that Computer Arts has helped develop through advice, tutorials, and exposure must be countless.”
02. The web
Although the internet had existed in some form since the early 1970s, virtually no one outside of computer scientists and serious nerds had heard of it. But in the mid-1990s, a program called Netscape came to prominence and started to turn web browsing from a bafflingly complex task into something that was relatively achievable.
“In terms of design moments, there’s been nothing more impactful for me than the birth of Netscape,” recalls Laura Jordan Bambach, creative director and former president of D&AD. “It turned to play on MOSAIC and working in Hyper Card and Director into something that had a potentially unlimited audience. A space to create art, and a community in cyberfeminism that’s had a massive impact on my life. It also gave me my career – starting a business at university, designing and coding when it was still all done in Notepad.”
Bambach was very much ahead of the game here: most graphic designers wouldn’t be designing for the web for at least another decade. But Netscape, on which the modern browser Firefox is based, remains a key moment in an internet age that’s changed pretty much everything.
03. UX Design
Today, user experience, aka UX, is one of the most in-demand services from graphic designers. But back in the mid-nineties, it was something early pioneers were only just inventing, usually in total isolation from each other.
Graphic designer and professor Louise Sandhaus offers a typical example. In the 90s, she was hired as an art director on a project for Taco Bell, which wanted to electronically run all of its store ordering through a single touch-screen system, to make life easier for employees. “But the methodologies didn’t really exist,” she recalls. “User experience and user interface design had yet to go mainstream. It was the Wild West.”
Initially, the visual design of the interface and the writing of the software were going to be conducted separately, but to Sandhaus, that seemed all wrong. “So I developed a methodology of sketched storyboards running through various tasks that allowed myself and the software engineers to develop the project together,” she …