Ten years ago this summer, Mountain View, California-based Netscape Communications went public, and became the highest profile technology sector floatation since Apple Computer in the late 70s. It had built its reputation on its Navigator Web browser. While this was free to download, Netscape was a commercial operation. The world of business and finance had started to take the Web, and the Internet, seriously.

And so did graphic designers, at least in the United States of America, where, late in 1995 establish Rhode Island School of Design-trained graphic designer Hugh Dubberly programmed the large, and largely successful, American Center for Design conference ‘Design for the Internet’. The list of presenters included many established graphic designers.

Not so back in the Britain, the spiritual home of graphic design (or visual communication as it is becoming known), as I discovered when I researched a chapter on the influence of independent British graphic designers on Web design for a chapter in Communicate, the Rick Poynor-edited book accompanying the eponymous Barbican Art Gallery exhibition. I found that the direct influence of established graphic designers – as opposed to British graphic design – was negligible. Most of the people I interviewed were so nonplussed by my theme that they invariably re-interpreted it to be about the influence of graphic designers in general – for instance Scandinavians – or of designers from other disciplines – product design, architecture – on Web design.

Not all established British graphic designers were uninterested in design for the Internet. (I shall interchangeably use this and other terms including interaction, interactive media, Web design, and networked products and services, as all are aspects of a fairly coherent discipline.) Some were intrigued, and a few even went on to engage in online projects for clients. Disinterested observership characterised most of the others. As the graphic design business largely continued as usual – albeit enhanced by the facility of email file attachments – design for interactive media was rapidly maturing.

And maturing to the point that as a discipline it has, in many areas, matured beyond graphic design. In particular, designers involved in interactive media tend to engage with clients at a higher level, manage projects with more thought, and have a more sophisticated view of their audience. Considering other design disciplines – and particularly graphic design – from the perspective offered by these observations and explicit processes (which I shall explain further) may help us to think about them anew.

Web designers are typically more involved in client strategy, as screen-based tools are more central to businesses (possibly even publishing) than print artifacts. They touch every process and division, including sourcing and manufacturing, marketing and sales, logistics and support, service delivery and retail, and financial and business analysis. Many businesses and organisations, from successful dotcoms typified by Amazon to established market leaders such as FedEx, rely on the Web interfaces for connecting customers, suppliers and employees.

As a result designers working with the Web are more involved in evaluating its business and organisational benefits and, in the former instance, the ‘return-on-investment’ of their work. They are also more likely to work across organisational divisions, recognise the need to explicitly consider the requirements and interests of all those involved in a project, and ensure that they understand the design solution – for without their active engagement most Web-based projects will eventually fail.

Of course, many graphic designers and graphic design-based agencies work strategically with clients – indeed Wolff Olins now refers to itself as being in the ‘reinvention business’ – and those involved in direct marketing are very focused on return-on-investment, but they are the exception. What greater impact could graphic design have if it could engage more extensively with clients at a higher level?

The second development: the design and communication processes of Web designers tend to be more consciously considered, not least because of project scope and diversity of people involved and interested in a project. Compared to most graphic designers, they build more extensive foundations for a project, plan it more carefully, do more research, investigate design solutions from more angles, and create more prototypes. They present possible solutions in a more considered fashion, test them more thoroughly, document their work more conscientiously, evaluate its success more readily, and reflect on their process more naturally.

Again, I am not arguing that these characteristics don’t exist in graphic design process. In fact, many of them are core to graphic design education. But what greater impact could graphic design have if it could manage projects with more self-consciousness and reflection?

The third development: Web designers tend to think more deeply about the people for who they are designing, instigate more user research, represent the user in the design process, consider scenarios of use, give greater consideration to the usability of the final product, and test the prototypes they create with real users.

This is not to imply that graphic designers don’t engage in or review consumer research, or that design solutions aren’t sometimes tested with focus groups. But these activities tend to position the consumer as the passive object of the design solution with who an emotional connection is sought, rather than a user (and adapter) of the product who will actively engage with it. What greater impact could graphic design have if it could embrace a more sophisticated view its audience?

In some respects these three developments reflect the greater professional self-consciousness that is required at the birth of a new discipline. Many of these approaches and processes are embedded in graphic practice – which is over a century old – and the forms with which it works – some of which have been evolving over half a millennium. Nevertheless we can gain a better understanding of, and possibly improve, the graphic design process by examining it through Web design spectacles.

I can attest to this first hand, as I have collaborated with some of the most thoughtful and smartest graphic designers and design studios working in the UK, including Simon Esterson, Mike Lackersteen, Peter Brawne, Debra Zuckerman, Cartlidge Levene, and MetaDesign London. Reflecting on how they approached their work I can see, in embryo or in semi-conscious practice, all the traits I am advocating.

Above the level of practice, at the level of debate and theory, developments in interactive media put graphic design in relief. Many interactive design practitioners who once might not have engaged in public communication (writing or speaking) have become leading commentators: well-read, able to draw from related disciplines, think laterally, make complex associations, and discuss design in a broader context. Among these new designer-communicators are architecture-trained Matt Jones (blackbeltjones.com), Dan Hill (cityofsound.com), who started in computer science, and human-computer interaction graduate Kevin Cheung (ok-cancel.com).

Certainly, there are many graphic designer-communicators – from Alan Fletcher to Quentin Newark, and Norman Potter to Adrian Shaughnessy – but they represent a tiny minority of practitioners. What greater impact could on design theory and practice might graphic design have if more practitioners were to engage in informed and thoughtful communication?

Not only has design for interactive media been rapidly and independently maturing, but the Web and Web design – and digital tools more generally – have also had a significant influence on graphic design. This influence extends to image formats (pixels and vectors), typography and Web syntax.

Although the influence of pixellation goes back to the launch of the Macintosh, it has been more marked since the advent of the Web, for which the native image formats are pixel-based. The same is true for pixel-based typefaces and lettering. Typefaces designed for the Web, such as Matthew Carter’s Verdana, have been readily adopted and experimented with in print. The crudeness of pixels, and the apparent lack of sophistication of Web-driven typefaces, have also appealed to designers keen to reintroduce some dissonance into print design after reproduction was technically perfected during the 90s using computer-based tools.

In the mid-90s, the development of the vector-based animation format Flash facilitated elegant movement and interaction in Web interfaces. Beyond the Web, the flat colour, linear style, and smooth movements characteristic of Flash have significantly influenced developments in illustration, animation and TV graphics titling. Indeed, in the latter fields Flash has in fact become a key production tool.

The syntax of hypertext (emboldened or underline phrases), Web navigation, and menu hierarchies are also reflected in print design, and the non-linear and multi-level nature of text on the Web can be seen in contemporary editorial design.

There are also counter-influences. The ease of sharing and accessing information on the Web has lead designers of books, catalogues and magazines to make some of them more physical and visceral – a trend evident in the work of Graphic Thought Facility and exemplified by the many formats of Visionaire Magazine. As music and movie downloading proliferates this influence is likely to extend further in design in the entertainment industry.

Whatever the character of its influences, the use of online media, for publishing, showcasing, discussion and commentary – using mailing lists and Weblogs – facilitated quicker circulation of new ideas and a new level of discussion about design (both on- and offline). And some established design commentators have embraced these models, including British design writer Rick Poynor who, with US colleagues Jessica Helfand, William Drentell and Michael Bierut edits the design and culture Weblog Design Observer (www.designobserver.com).

Design for interactive media may have been maturing – and influencing graphic design – but it is by no means mature. In many of the areas in which it will need to develop further, it may need more than ever to draw on graphic design.

These developments will be needed to address improvements taking place in hardware and bandwidth, and software and computing languages, as well as the greater number of people, both professionals and consumers, who will have access to networked products and services.

Better quality, larger and lighter screens (as well as ‘electronic paper’) will allow for more portable digital devices, and for a proliferation public displays. This will demand a better understanding of typography, particularly readability, and of design for time-based media. It will also demand better editorial design. Improved screen resolution will facilitate richer layouts, and greater bandwidth will allow for richer use of imagery and other media. These are all areas which can draw from British editorial design, including those I have mentioned. In addition, the proliferation of screens on devices will also require more interface design, an old discipline but one that that visual communication is well equipped to inform.

The general possibilities for typography are expanding and will continue to expand, with more screen-optimised fonts available on computers and other devices, and perhaps the re-introduction of classic print typefaces for use on high-resolution displays. Operating systems have also embraced non-Roman scripts, including scripts that read from left to right. Here designers will in fact have to go beyond Roman typography if they are to master their application. Better tools for manipulating the improving languages that control screen layout, dynamic interface, and typography will allow for the kind of control of digitally delivered information currently only seen in the page makeup, animation and time-based media applications. The rich tradition of British typography, currently represented by Phil Baines, will have a lot to offer.

Proliferation of (high quality) screens will also facilitate greater use of information visualisation for data presentation and analysis, as well as for the more mundane but equally useful presentation of structured information such as timetables and financial data. Classic British information design, represented by ex-pat Nigel Holmes and many others, will be rich source of inspiration. And the work of directory and reference work designers such as Richard Southall and Boag Associates will also be a valuable reference point.

One of the greatest challenges for Web design has been designing to support updating and creation by non-designers. The importance of this has been emphasised by the development of Weblogging, which has enabled millions of people to easily create and publish to diary-style Web sites. These challenges are well understood by magazine and newspaper art directors, who typically work closely with sub-editors – the day-to-day designers of newspapers and many periodicals – and their approach will provide many useful lessons.

The prevalence of Flash in Web browsers and on other platforms, and the development of vector-based standards for online delivery[i], has facilitated the delivery of interactive infographics. Here designers can again draw on newspaper design, where infographics have for years been a staple – at one time exemplified by the London Sunday Times – and television news – where they tend to be animated to show change over time, for instance in financial markets.

With the increase in bandwidth available to fixed devices such as computers and interactive televisions (if not mobile devices) some of the possibilities of rich static, time-based and interactive media can be realised. Designers will need to learn more about the use of imagery and photography, and designing around time-based media. They will also need to learn more about documentary design and story-telling techniques. Some of this learning will be drawn from the history and parallel development of CD-ROM and interactive DVDs, as well as editorial design, and the design of film- and television titles and information display.

A less analysable skill Web design might draw from graphic design is how to design products and services for desire and delight (at visual, visceral, conceptual and intellectual levels). An element of this would involve developing a greater appreciation of the qualities of their medium, and learning how to design with and for the medium rather than just in it – a facility British graphic designers have in abundance.

As general rules and patterns for the design of interactive products and services continue to be become established – as they have with graphic design – it should be easier for graphic designers to build on this solid foundation and work, as they are used to, based on intuition and lateral thinking. This more constrained but flexible model will make it easier for more designers – and non-designers – to get involved in interactive media and create usable, and possibly delightful, design solutions.

The last decade of the Web, beginning with the ascendance of Netscape, has been a beta test for future networked products and services. The challenges that now face us are even greater – and more interesting – that those with which we have already dealt. To master these new challenges will need serious application and input from graphic design – perhaps more so than from any other design discipline. Graphic designers took a lead in the early days of the Web. Now they need to again.

[i] Such as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG): a graphic format that supports vector-based images and is scalable, thus able to be presented at an appropriate size on different size displays, and possibly allowing users to zoom in on the graphic.