What does it mean to be a graphic designer today? That question is one that Jarrett Fuller – designer, educator, writer – has been exploring in his own work. A recognized writer on the state of professional practice, host of the Scratching the Surface podcast, and assistant professor of graphic & experience design at NC State University, Fuller is continually looking at the evolution of his profession. 

His latest book, Graphic Designers After Graphic Design, explores this concept through a series of interviews, case studies, and profiles of mid-career individuals who identify as graphic designers, but whose work doesn’t necessarily match our traditional views of graphic design. This book is a showcase of a generation of designers who are comfortable in the blurriness of what graphic design is – and confident in reinventing what it could be. 

Overall, the book serves as a lifeline to those despairing about the “death of graphic design,” acting as a hopeful future for a new generation of individuals entering the profession. It’s a permission slip of sorts – a chance to give yourself leeway in defining your own graphic design professional practice. 

“This book is somewhat selfish,” Fuller says.“As someone who has two degrees in graphic design, and doesn’t necessarily do things that look like graphic design, I’ve had a little bit of an identity crisis – do I still call myself a designer? Yes, I do.” Fuller wanted to make an argument that his own work – the podcast, writing about graphic design – was still falling within the definition of designer. That confidence in continuing to define himself as a designer not only helped him talk and think about his own work, but gave him that permission slip to be more exploratory in his practice. 

Throughout the book, Fuller defines a range of designers with unique approaches to their subject, grouping them into five distinct categories: Designer as Publisher, Designer as Researcher, Designer as Change Maker, Designer as Performer, and Designer as Artist. “After every interview, I thought ‘Oh, I want to do work like them. I want to make a performance, or make a film, or produce my own magazine.’ I thought to myself ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’”

As part of the book’s final design, Fuller chose to include each designer’s birth year and location. The effect is a cohort of designers, who are now all in dialogue with one another, and representative of their generation – from a few Gen X on one side, Millennials in the middle, and  a little Gen Z on the other – all making a statement about the practice of graphic design. “I don’t think anyone else has really done that before, and I’m proud of that, because design can feel so fractured, and like everyone is doing their own thing. This book pulls them all together and makes an argument about that.”

Through the interviews, case studies and profiles throughout the book, there is a sense of expansion of what graphic design is, a “blurry and porous” concept that has always reflected the technological changes of the day. In the section, Designer as Artist, Fuller interviews Ella Sutherland, who asks herself “how can I make paintings that don’t look like paintings? How can I make paintings that look as if they’ve been designed, and printed, not painted?” 

Sutherland brought her own personal design education into her work as an artist. Fuller found that immensely valuable, noting that the intentional act of getting away from design allows you to return to it with a new perspective. “There’s a lot of value in working outside of these traditional structures….to see how it actually changes how you return to design. This speaks to the idea that we’re expanding design, and in expanding it, we’re changing it in some way,” he adds.

Continuing his reflection on the difference between art and design, Fuller notes that designers are often designing in reaction to something, whether that’s a client brief, brand guidelines, or project parameters. Artists, on the other hand, are often responding to an internal motivation, where they establish their own parameters. 

“That mode of thinking is really different,” Fuller notes. “What does design look like when it’s not responding to something? How does that experimentation – that making things to make things, exploring technology or techniques – how does that inform a practice? That’s something a lot of people in this book did. They are finding new ways to make things and developing new creative processes that are not just responsive, but active.”

In the book’s afterword, Fuller gives a history lesson on the entomology of graphic design. The profession as we know it emerged in 1917, with the California School of the Arts and Crafts’ catalog listing for a course titled “Graphic Design and Lettering.” But graphic denotes the process of drawing, writing, representing, recording, describing or the art of the process – a suffix to words such as photographic, biographic, geographic. 

“This book is an attempt to reclaim the term graphic design, to embrace the blurriness, the multidisciplinarity of it. I strongly push back on the idea that graphic design is dying. It’s not in crisis. It’s just changing, as it always has,” Fuller notes in the afterword. 

He encourages the reader to see that the designers in this book are opening up, expanding, and twisting the practice’s traditional definitions. Reflecting on his experience of writing the book, Fuller notes the joy in the writing; in the making. And now, he is more proudly claiming his title of graphic designer than ever before. 

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If you’re interested in purchasing Graphic Designers After Graphic Design, you can do so through Princeton Architectural Press. 

For more about Fuller’s podcast, visit scratchingthesurface.fm. 

This post was originally published in College of Design Blog.