Graphic design was always used to communicate with the people in a very particular way. Either for political reason or for product advertisiment, graphic design was always there. In the beginnig there was the Typography design and all the same posters, soon this would change with the Avant-Garde movement. Designers such El Lissinsky change the way that graphic design  was viewed, in fact in that time there was no such a thing as graphic design. While Europe was in war, the political class used it for pass the massage to the people or to the troops, but America also used design for political mathers during wars that America envolved the graphic design helped to get more troops and to pass the massage that the war was needed for the people and for America.

From then till now, graphic design has evolved slowly but consistently. The graphic design has also won the public recognition, everybody knows that a good design sells and could make the difference when the brand is the big picture. Sometimes graphic design isn’t enough to sell a brand and associated to the graphic design and soon with it’s own importance born the multimedia design where the sound and the motion came along with the image and help the rise of the brands. In the World War, some countries used cinema to make the first multimedia statements. With the TV and radios, graphic design starts to faint the glamour of it’s golden era were the message was drawn by it’s colors and types.

The new path of graphic design

Most recently graphic design had another challenge, it’s called Tablets. The newspapers and magazines have their version of  the paper into an electronic version, however it’s not just a electronic version, it’s a richest version of the paper edition. Until the digital paper, as many of us heard about, isn’t available, the Tablets version will rule the new world of print design.

Although the graphic design itself didn’t had to do anything, i.e. it’s not a new way of making graphic design, it’s a new way of thinking the graphic design. Nowadays, the graphic designers should think in rich content to integrate in each layout that is produced. You can have links to web content, you can add those info graphic informations in a dynamic way, instead of displaying just a graphic with all the data. You should think that the layout can be fluid and you certainly have to think in have some multimedia content, such as, videos and sound (smell is not available yet).

A few years ago, web designers face the fluid layout challenge, when the screens start to get several sizes and resolutions. The graphic designers didn’t need to worry about that, posters, newspapers or any other print media doesn’t change it’s format, or does it? Well, if you have an iPad® or another popular tablet and rotate the screen, you expect that the content fill all the screen and if it’s possible adjust to be more easy to read. So the biggest challenge of a graphic designer these days is to guarantee that the publications will be perfectly read and still beautiful either in portrait or landscape.

But it gets better, along with that little layout trick, add some interactivity, left your design ready for include videos and web links, play with changes from the portrait to the landscape, and your design it’s offering to the reader the best experience possible.

The web is in a hurry… with the web 2.0, the web was revived and reborn, not only on design matters but also on programming, frameworks were made, and still have been made lately, to ensure a best and fast web development, standards compliance and easiest integration with AJAX.

Every web language suffer an upgrade based on web 2.0 standards, which relies on usability, simplicity and great web design. Although, the most used languages are PHP and ASP.NET, another ones born with the web 2.0 era. Ruby on Rails are one example, it’s a language simple to deploy, mostly of the code are simply deployed with a command and it builds all you need (Javascript code, HTML code and server code) at once. Of course, if you like a more deep development you need to know a little ore than the commands to generate most of the code, but sure it’s easier than to do everything.

PHP have also some frameworks which leads to a more quickly development, such as CakePHP, Code Igniter, Nature PHP, Symphony and so on…
Some of these frameworks are still under development and been improved at every upgrade that they suffer. Also, most of them, uses Javascript fameworks to make the AJAX calls and any interaction on the webpage.

When web 2.0 born, some rules were applied to web design and development, and some improvements were made, trying to make web rich without compromise navigation experience for the user. So, with web 2.0 also borns some Javascript frameworks that resembling some interactive experiences from Flash, but without the “time and slow” of Flash^tm.

Later, as a response for this improvements Adobe^tm launches Flex SDK which is a mix of Javascript, HTML, server language and Flash, making a major improvement on the RIA app development, however Flex isn’t as easy to learn as others languages and still has the problem of Flash Plugin in every browser that user try to access that application. In other hand, Flex made possible the idea of having an Desktop Application along with an online Application and Adobe played another card launching AIR Player, which makes possible any Flex App runs on any PC with Windows or Linux or MAC with the AIR installed on it.

Also Microsoft wants to play at the web development at web 2.0.
As you may know Microsoft developed ASP and later ASP.net, which brings the first time idea of Framework, much more earlier than any other popular framework, however, the Microsoft problem is the close architecture of the code and the development process, which is easier if you use the “Microsoft Development Tools”, such as Microsoft Visual Studio^tm. Later, and instigated by Adobe, Microsoft launches Silverlight, which promise to make interactivity on the web and in the PC.

Lately, a new life for Flash and web application rise with the bon of the fHTML. This new technology based on simple HTML programming converts this simple HTML into Flash on-the-fly. The good thing is, you can do your programming as usual and then display the page as Flash, since you can use programming languages along with your XHTML.

Pros

• You don’t have to learn a new programming language to build a Flash website (ActionScript);
• You do a stunning website with almost no need of buying expensive softwares
• More simple and less pain on renewing layouts;
• More dynamic web apps with resource to DB n a easy way.

Cons

• The visitors must have the Flash plugin installed in order to see the website;
• There are, still, the waiting time for loading the website;
• If you have a slow computer, or a slow internet connection, you still have to wait and you still view the website or any element in a “streaming way”.

Anyway, they are trying to make the developers and webdesigners lifes easier and I really hope that they get it…

The art of photography always had several forms to express itself and in each time there”s always a trend in photography, in the recent years a trend named lomography remembering the name of a Russian”s photo cameras manufacter, the Lomo.
The lomography is the use of those cameras and others regarding those times of photography, because the cameras had a few flaws in the conception and structure, the final results are sometimes more saturated and blur. Additional to Lomo cameras the lomographer”s “added” Diana and Holga cameras to the lomographic cameras portfolio which produces a “burned” picture since they have some flaws on the body of the camera, letting the light enter inside of the film.
The result is a beautiful composition, full of color and somehow remembering the old times, so that”s an easy point to keep this cameras alive.
Some lomography photos:

The Polaroid

Another photography trend that almost died was Polaroid, the unique photos taken immediatly and a few moments later available for enjoy died last year, by decision of Polaroid, however a few enthusiasts, buy the manufacture equipment and space at Holand and are trying to produce a new Polaroid film.
The idea is let the enthusiast of this technique continue take quick beautiful pictures of the moment, in fact, when the Kodak invented the slogan Kodak moment, it should apply to Polaroid, since that Polaroid is taken and seen at almost the same instant.
So, The Impossible Project, is reviving Polaroid again, they expected to launch the first new “Polaroid” film in 2010, a Black and White film and probably in the same year or in 2011, the color film. Right now the only thing you can do, as enthusiastic Polaroid photographer is to support the project, buying some t-shirts and manisfest yourself at http://www.savepolaroid.com/ a website of fans of this amazing camera and film.
If you have a Polaroid camera and whant to buy some film, the most probably scenario is, you couldn””t find any, so you can check at eBay or instead yo could check and buy the last stocks of Polaroid film at Polapremium.

By the way, if you are a Polaroid photographer you shoul create an account at Polanoid and uload you polaroids to your gallery and share your “Polainspiration” with others Polaroid photographers.