A story of misencounters: Graphic design and the production of digital interaction

Abstract

Graphic designers have built their practice and history long before the emergence of computer technology. When graphic designers encountered the computer, they extracted benefits of a recent tool with predictive advantages for their working process, largely influencing visual communication. Meanwhile, a great number of interaction features were developed for digital artifacts, which constituted a landmark for computer technologies and became the basis for even greater enhancements in following decades. However, production of digital interaction and printed matter never came to cross each other directly, leaving graphic design without opportunity to enthusiast people’s participation and further improve possible uses. By tracing some historic moments and their contribution, we are able to better understand how graphic design is lacking a dynamic approach, when dealing with printed matter, and how we can also realize possible relations to improve its practice.