I've had this thought going through my head lately and if anyone else has gone to school as a graphic design major assuredly you've been asked the same question. It's surprising sometimes what people think I do. "So is it like technical drawing and auto CAD?" they'll ask. I try to explain it pertains more to marketing and advertising using graphics and typography. But is that really all a graphic designer does? Everyone has tried their hand at that using powerpoint or publisher. What makes a designer different besides doing it as a career? To be most blunt, a designer has ideas. Not just what image should be used where, but conceptually innovative ideas. Take for instance David Carson. A former eighth-ranked surfer in the world, with less than a few months of design classes to his name, conceptually changed how people view design. He art directed the magazine Ray Gun and used it as an experimentation with typography and design. He dropped page numbers and it was the first time in magazine history that an inside story jumped to continue on the front cover (Bierut). Barcodes were no longer confined to the lower corners of the page but placed within the design. His work was considered by some as anti-commercialism.

It was this bizarre, divergent, and extraordinary design and ideas that made the magazine so appealing, along with an apropos subject matter of cutting-edge social icons in music etc. But Carson was not the person to create something and then sit back and watch it succeed. His goal was to always do something different. He never used the same approach for two openers (Bierut). This is what separates a graphic designer from someone who designs commercially for a living.

Graphic designers are thinkers.Good graphic designers are great thinkers. Great graphic designers are revolutionary thinkers.

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