Gordon Kaye has been editor and publisher of GDUSA (Graphic Design USA) for more than three decades. He is a graduate of Hamilton College, Princeton University’s SPIA, and Columbia Law School. This comment, connected to our 61st GDUSA Design Annual Showcase (officially known as the American Graphic Design Awards™), first appeared in our December 2024 print and digital magazines. He is shown here with Website and Social Media Editor Sasha Kaye-Walsh, herself a Hamilton graduate and Rutgers University MFA. GDUSA is celebrating six decades as a news and information source for the graphic design and related creative community.
“Write the story you love. Then, even if no one buys it, you’ll still have some-thing you like to read.”
I have unwittingly been taking Haruki Murakami’s advice for 35 years, using these ‘Letters From The Editor’ to write about something I love — the creativity of graphic designers — and re-reading them at the end of each year to see how they are aging. One thing that sur-prises me is how often these comments touch on cultural and technological change, taste and style trends, economic booms and busts, political campaigns and impeachments, race-and class, even wars and a pandemic. They say the history of design is the design of his-tory. Maybe so. Would l recommend anyone else revisit these ‘Letters’? Absolutely not. Remarks ain’t literature. And there are misfires aplenty: turns out I favored the Iraq war, was skeptical of the Apple’s viability, snarky about Pantone color trends, shocked by roy-alty-free stock, slow to champion inclusivity, always ready to hold onto trends too long and to declare recessions over too soon.
That said, like a blind squirrel who occasionally finds a nut, I have from time to time managed to stumble upon and note a few developments over the decades that help explain why this art/skill/discipline/practice/business/industry today is bigger, livelier and more influential than ever.
For one thing, it has become clear that effective graphic design and its practitioners be-came increasingly prized and respected by business and society in a world of clutter and chaos. Second, changing technologies thrust designers and other content creators in the center of the creative and production process. Third, smart firms, agencies and departments learned to transform themselves into strategic thinkers, masters of multiple media and productive technologies, and cultural synthesizers who reflect and even shape business and society, products and services, commerce and culture. And, finally, creative people dis-covered that their talents were and are uniquely suited to designing for good. In one of these columns a decade ago, I noted a then-new Michael Bierut book entitled “How To … use graphic design to sell things, explain things, make things look better, make people laugh, make people cry, and (every once in a while) change the world.” That captures the spirit as well as anything.
These developments are evident in our 61st GDUSA Design Annual. The pieces showcased — and their creators — are among the best and brightest. The numbers alone are prodigious: 8,000+ entries leading to a display of 700 pieces reflecting the endless ways in which creative professionals do, in fact, advance and shape business and society. Equally exciting is the sheer breadth. Projects run the gamut from print and packaging and publications to websites and social media and motion graphics. From bread and butter projects to dream assignments. From Fortune 500 clients to non-profits and start-ups. From design studios to ad agencies to inhouse departments and student work. From red states and blue. From the great and established to the upcoming and disruptive.
More important, this is graphic design harnessed to effectively crystallize and express the essence of organizations, companies, brands, products, cultures, causes. With graphic designers in the room where it happens and taking responsibility for processes and outputs. The successful ones embracing the inevitability of change and then more change. If we are lucky and blessed, we here will continue to write the story of something we love — you and your journey — bask in your glow — and enjoy an occasional revisit.
– GK
