I can't think of a title. So I'm just call this 'Readings'

I read this a while ago. But it's good. It's titled 'Expression of Australian Graphic Design.' It's an interview with Prof. Ross Gibson by Andrew Barnum, published in Open Manifesto 2.

I just want to highlight a few things Prof. Gibson mentioned. They're so obvious but I don't know if it's that obvious to everyone because there is quite a discussion over it. The discussion is 'what is Australian graphic design". Gibson points out that Australia is "an import culture rather than an export culture." A culture "that never actually sets itself and defines itself permanently." He also quote Gay Bilson, I'm going to quote a person quoting. When Gay is asked "What is Australian cuisine?" Gay's reply is "there is no Australian cuisine." Gibson also says that he admires designers that doesn't have an aesthetic style but good problem solvers.

Now I'm just going to talking about something that's not about the interview but was just triggered by reading it.

Where is the line between graphic design and advertising. They both need to think of the audience, both need to understand the company and both needs to understand the purpose of the piece they are doing. Some people might say that advertising is more idea based and less aesthetically based but I don't think that is 100% true.

What is graphic design? Designing graphics? There's so many similar job descriptions that are similar to graphic design these days. Communication design? A brand consultant?

I'm talking about this because I often find myself doing task that an advertising person or brand consultant would do. I enjoy designing graphics but I don't want to be a tool for someone but a process What I'm afraid is that graphic designer become just a tool and in order to be a process you'd have to change your job title.

There's already a lot of discussing talking about what graphic design is. What I've just said has probably be discussed a few hundred times. I blame consumerism! It's evil!