Do you want to rename the site to "Art & Design"?

Question

Based on this question. Thought it would be best to create a new one, as the other is a bit overflown with information.

From the latest comments, some of us are thinking "Art & Design" might be a better option than Graphic Design. It's more inclusive, and it allows for a broadening of the scope, which could mean more visitors, more questions and hopefully our final graduation from Beta.

• Please answer for yes or no, and (if you want) give a short explanation for your choice.

EDIT:

• Would you consider either of these a better option?:

• "Graphic Art & Design"

• "Graphic Design and Art"  

• "Graphic Art"

Answer 1

Yes.

I think it's much more descriptive. There's so much more to design than simply pushing software around. "graphic design" often equates to page layout to me. Graphic Arts is used for printing techniques. Simply making it Art & Design allows for all types of design - environmental, textile, industrial. And "Art" allows for other skills used in design such as sketching, drawing, painting.

• Graphic Art & Design. This is okay but not great. I see this as perhaps implying that it's art as related to design. But be aware "Graphic art" traditionally refers to press procedures - stripping, camera work, platemaking, etc. So there's room for some real confusion. How do we then handle questions like, "My imagesetter is failing to render a plate correctly" Or "How do I adjust this art so I can silk screen it on a Tshirt?"

• Graphic Design & Art This is good. I'd find this greatly acceptable. It defines the scope well without much room for interpretation. It would imply questions about industrial, textile, environmental design are off-topic. While at the same time broadening the scope to include questions regarding traditional media rather than merely software questions.

• Graphic Art To me, unacceptable. See Graphic Art & Design above. This could simply be a cultural issue, but people in the U.S. take college courses under the hood of "Graphic Art" and learn to run a press and make plates. I don't think that's what the scope of the site is.

Answer 2

Yes.

The obvious unfortunate outcome of naming this site "Graphic Design" is that most questions can be categorized under 'Creative Suite help-desk'. While I enjoy some of those questions and often learn new things from them, the repetition gets stale quickly.

I would look forward to the increased scope that comes with renaming this site to "Art & Design"

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Edit:

I think "Graphic Design and Art" would probably be best

Answer 3

Yes.

Although my vote actually goes to Graphic Design & Art. I wouldn't object to Art & Design, but "Graphic Design" is something very specific which the general Design isn't. Design could cover interior design, industrial design, and clothing. Scott makes the best case.

Answer 4

Yes.

Because the most interesting innovations cone from the fringes and spaces between disciplines, before getting mainstream acceptance.

When the next big thing starts to emerge, I'd want us to be on the front line helping it develop - not reaching for the "close as off topic" button because it's only just starting to be part of graphic design.

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...and yes to Graphic Design & Art as an improvement because it's fine for the above issue, and seems a better match for our focus: a broad permissive circle with the graphic design and artworking professions at the centre (rather than being centred around, say, watercolour landscapes, ceramics and expensive molded plastic chairs).

Answer 5

We talked this over pretty thoroughly internally, and we feel there are a couple important things to point out here:

1. We feel the addition of "& Art" is misleading. This site, for all its strengths, is not and never was meant to be about sculpture, crochet, or tile mosaics. Is it about elements that relate to those fields? Absolutely -- color choice, materials contrast and complements, and even arrangement would (theoretically) fit in on this site, as long as we were talking about the visual aspect of design work in the question's context. However, sculpture technique, kiln temperature regulation, and yarn gauge comparisons don't have a real place here, but having “Art” in the title would lead to people asking those kinds of questions on your site.
2. The problem you're trying to solve -- making this site not about just the software side of design work -- isn't going to be instantly solved by a name change. I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you: it sucks, but changing how people (especially drive-by people) use this site takes work and effort and time. You've had a phenomenal year, with amazing growth and expansion in that time. Take advantage of it! Build on the scope expansion project yourselves, ask the types of questions you want to see on here. Do you want more questions about graphic novel page layouts? Ask them yourself, especially if you already know the answer.

Look, I pay close attention to this site, and I am very sympathetic with what you’re all struggling with here. However, trust me: changing your site's name is treating a symptom, not the cause of that frustration.

I know you all feel strongly about this, so I would like to propose an alternative: instead of adding words to your site title, remove the word "graphic” from your site name. There's a possibility you're going to get some questions from the esoteric ends of the design spectrum (interior design! furniture design! fashion design! manicure color layout! papercraft!) but you're also going to get some of the other things you do want to see (textiles design, page layout, font design/typography, color theory, etc) as well. If this is something you all consider worth pursuing, start a new meta post and make your arguments and position(s) just as clear as you did here.

Either way, I urge you all to redirect your efforts from picking a name to, instead, asking and answering the kinds of questions you want to see more of on the site.

I have full confidence in this community to rally together and continue to push and expand this site beyond "Adobe Q&A". You've done it before, and you can do it again.

Answer 6

Yes

Basically everything has been said in the previous topics and posts, so im just casting my vote. Im for both Art & Design and the Graphic Design & Art options.

Im hoping a name change would help draw new experts to the site, who could help by asking and answering the type of quesstions ive been asking lately

Answer 7

No.

'Art & Design' is a very broad description of what we all do, but I think it's too broad by far.

'Art' conveys a notion of classical art; at least to me. It includes classical painting, music, writing, theatre, rhetoric etc., things I guess we don't really want to discuss on this SE.

'Design' comes much closer. Lauren Ipsum neatly summarizes my problems with the term.

My vote goes to 'Graphic Design & Art', as per Scott's arguments. It's quite clear that an SE with this name does not involve the classical arts as I named them above.

Answer 8

No.

"Art" is very wide notion covering things that are not in the scope of this SE site. And if they are, then the scope of the project is too wide for the site to work well. Art contains pottery, sculptures, architecture, furniture design, fashion design etc. As well, the name Art & Design sounds completely unrelated to graphical software, which creates vast majority of the site traffic.

Answer 9

I would rather leave the site as is or rename it to something that includes the word Communications in it such as Visual Communications, Graphic Arts & Communications, Graphic Communications, Graphic Design & Visual Communications or something similar.

I feel the big distinction between us and Artists is that our #1 purpose is to effectively communicate and use images in addition to text in order to do so.

I agree that it would be nice to be on the forefront of such topics by not closing them too hastily for not being "2D graphic design issues" which is why I think something like "Visual Communications" continues with the purpose of our field while opening it up to all tools used to achieve that goal.