ery few artists get the opportunity to have their work displayed on buildings the size of The Centaurus Mall in Islamabad. A large vertical poster, lights illuminating it, for all to be forced to stare at, simply because of the sheer scale of the thing. That’s what I want to talk about: scale.

Artists hardly ever get their work to be ‘scaled.’ I mean, to be displayed on walls, bus stops, billboards, the sides of buses, on shelves at grocery stores, on bags in the hands of people shopping, and on the packets they’re holding as they grab crisps to munch on them. But, wait a minute. There are artists doing that. Only, very few remember that they are artists.

The term ‘graphic design’ is vague. It was coined in the 1920s. Until then people in that line of work were called commercial artists. For me, graphic designers are public artists — their work does not interact exclusively with specific segments of society but is there for the masses to see and to hold in their minds, whether it appeals to them or not. This is also the art that sets the tone for public spaces.

We often forget all that graphic design includes. For instance, the road signs telling you where you’re going on the road are designed by graphic designers. Somebody made a decision to do them in the colour blue; it may have been because they wanted them to look official. Or it could be because of its visibility at night when it is supposed to glow in response to the car headlights. There’s also the font they decided to use: size, weight, colour. There are lines around them.

Graphic design also includes less serious things — things that might be more fun but are no less significant. The decision to make salted Lays yellow and the vinegar ones blue, for instance. Somehow they convinced all of us that blue tastes like vinegar.

Then there is the question of identity. That’s the thing that fires me up — creating identities for organisations, universities, schools, public health campaigns, public service campaigns and many more: the process of understanding the scope, vision, audience, purpose of the thing and then creating a language of messaging around it.

The job of the graphic designer is not to come up with the literal language (something the copywriters would do, but I do also because there’s no rulebook that says graphic designers can’t), but rather the visual language of the brand. This means that a great graphic designer working to create a brand identity would be able to design one that other designers can use later to create decades’ (even centuries, in the case of companies like Coke) worth of campaigns for the organisation or project. This would include a sort of spirit for the brand. This spirit would be the identity that would be seen in all things the brand puts out into the world: packaging, official buildings, promotional material, PR releases and much more. Since the work of a graphic designer is concerned with visuals, it encompasses a great deal.

Paula Scher, a brand identity expert, says, “Words have meaning, type has spirit.” Typography is a big part of a brand’s identity. What fonts are used, the sizing and ratios of fonts in relation to one another. A great designer will stress on the finest of details, something clients will often not care about. A little bit goes a long way when it comes to design. Subtle tweaks like removing the ‘nike’ from the top of the swoosh made the logo more iconic. Of course, someone had to notice that and suggest it. For that, they probably had to read tonnes of books, learn ridiculous amounts about shapes, compositions, ratios, colours, art styles and movements, typography and culture.

I believe the commodification of graphic design brought about by online services has been unfortunate. It has caused cheap imitators and lazy scribblers to become the face of most, if not all, graphic design. These people cannot be called commercial artists. This means that companies that are bigger and more serious about their branding will use the services of huge international ad agencies. Such agencies may hire actually serious and involved commercial artists but such artists will be fed on by the agency parasitically, which will take credit and ensure such artists remain invisible. These artists will also never be allowed to do their best work.

What makes real graphic design commercial art is the obsessiveness of the person practicing it and how much nuance means to them. It’s also how much they know about the different decisions they could have made with the design at hand and why they chose the one they did. It is not a matter of winging it or going purely by gut and what looks good. It’s about telling a story.

Pakistan has examples of great commercial artistry. Decades later, the PIA logo still works. As a designer, it looks to me like it can last many more. This is why when the airline rebranded a few years ago it did not need to be changed. This is the essence of good identity design. It can evolve without losing its spirit.

As a designer, I deal with creating spirit. I ask you to pay more attention and only acquire services of designers to whom things like this matter.

Uneeb Nasir writes about culture, art and identity. More of his work can be found on medium.com/@uneebnasir