“Futurism” – Cebu Graphic Design Week Exhibit

CEBU, Philippines — Much has been said about what makes art different from graphic design.

As convergence points that lead visual elements to the byways of reflective interpretation and understanding, discussions and debates on the differentiating variables of the two have raged on for years – with many agreeing to disagree that if art is meant to be interpreted, graphic design is meant to be understood.

This stalemate view on the art-versus-graphic-design debate served as the binder of a recent creative presentation in Cebu, itled “Futurism” and held at the second level Atrium of Robinsons Galleria Cebu. The exhibit featured digital prints that were made by a number of Cebu’s established and up-and-coming graphic designers who’ve crafted visuals for publications, illustrations for comic book titles, character designs for games and visual elements for websites, mobile applications and short video features.

A highlight of the first “Cebu Graphic Design Week” – which ran from August 20 to 26 in different venues in Metro Cebu – the exhibit was different from other art shows which Cebu has had in the past couple of years, in the sense that this one featured works that were not exactly meant to create an emotional response between a work and a viewer, but still managed to accomplish just that.

As a graphic-design exhibit, the show was dominated by pieces that were made with vector (scalable graphics) and raster (bitmap-based graphics) editing software, apart from presenting works that played with elements of typography, hand-drawn illustrations and digitally manipulated photographs.

In terms of its curatorial scope, “Futurism” was aptly scored by a what-you-see-is-what-you-get tone – wherein it left it to its viewers to decide on where they stand in the art- versus-graphic-design debate with the show’s featured works as their vantage point.

The exhibit also managed to dip into the argument that if art is molded by taste, then graphic design is formed by opinion.