Digital Media for Design - Essay Example

Digital Media for Design Digital media, often referred as new media, is broadly used in all kinds of human activities and professions today. Digitalmedia possesses very distinctive characteristics from the analogue media. In the essay, The Language of New Media by Lev Manovitch, the author defines the term digital media and distinguishes it from the analogue media. He asserts, “New media is analogue media converted to a digital representation. In contrast to analogue media which is continuous, digitally encoded media is discrete” (Manovitch, 2002, 49).

Digital media is any digital type of contents – texts, photos, audios and videos – that are stored in an electronic machine and uses same digital code. As the electronic device, computer plays important role that displays and stores all forms of analogue media that are converted to digital form and makes it possible to display different types of media in a single machine. Throughout the 20th century, as improvement of technology supported human demand and imagination into real life, digital media came into the world and became an important part for all kinds of professions and life in essence.

Digital media introduced the new way of communication without any restriction of geographical distance between people, and individuals could easily benefit by creating new things based on richness of information. Especially, as Internet brought the death of distance, people became equipped to access and interact towards any information from anywhere and at anytime. It allowed at providing more information that was available to people and enabled them to share useful ideas. This also encourages people to create new things based on other people’s thoughts or works, and the rise of these interactions brought the growth of digital media in the present times.

Since digital media possesses lots of advantages, it has changed the way of approach in various professions like politics, art, and design. Especially, existence of digital media is very significant for designers in a way that it facilitates design innovations and design processes that used to take a long time solely with the hands such as duplicating and manipulating. Everything can be duplicated and manipulated very easily now, without loss of original copy and this has made it easier for designers to make compositions as well as designs becoming more dynamic.

In the essay, Digital Arts by Christiane Paul, she asserts, “As Digital technologies add an extra dimension to the composite and collage, for disparate elements can be blended more seamlessly” (Paul, 2008, 31). It also allows implementation of the ideas, which were thought as being mine or made sense in our head but could not be achieved by old media such as paintings, drawings or photography; however, with digital media, designers can make it possible what humans have been wanting and things that people have imagined and made sense in the head but cannot fulfill or visualize in real life.

As Manovitch says in his essay, “Interactive computer media perfectly fits this trend to eternalize and objectify the mind’s operations. The very principle of hyperlinking, which forms the basis of interactive media, objectifies the process of association, often taken to be central to human thinking.” Digital media allows to combine one art form to another or to make seamless transition of different mediums or images. This allows designers to implement what people had in their mind. One of the striking examples would be that of morphing.

The people thought that age transition was in our head but that it not possible as it can come about. However with the usage of the digital media, designers can achieve effective motion images that people can see the smooth transition of age from one person to another. Therefore, digital media propels innovations in design not only with the design process but also the techniques and speed of the design process. As digital media rises and usage of Internet has grown dramatically in the world, the myth about possibilities that digital media might end or the complete transformation of things that are not media at all; art, design, and even politics have also risen; however, the rise of digital media will not be able to bring destruction of things that are non-media but it will help to grow the things.

Digital media is a tool that gives alternative solution or options for supporting professions like art and design. In the essay, Loose Ends: The Death of Distance, the End of Politics by Vincent, the author suggests “Carincross and Ohamae see computer communication as the logical contribution of enlightenment rationality, extending the line of progress by using new tools to do more things better.” Since it is a tool, it will be one of the alternative ways to approach and to support improvement of these things and it has propelled innovations in arts and design.

Mosco also proves digital media as a tool by borrowing admittance of Mitchel. He says, “Mitchell, acknowledge that the traditional places of the material (as opposed to the digital) world remain and contribute to the richness of social life (93).” Digital media has changed design process faster and easier, and way of communication by giving no restrictions of displaying and manipulating seamless transition from one medium to another one and the geographical distance; however, we sometimes go back to the traditional mediums of arts and design, and traditional communication.

This is because each medium has its own unique characteristics that one cannot perfectly replace with another. That is why today designers and artists sometimes go back to use paints and hand draw for their works. Also politics still preferred to meet and discuss in person because there are some things that you cannot feel on the computer screen. Digital media will allow them to manipulate and create faster and thus is an easier way to create the arts but cannot destroy other things but it will be there to support things that are not medium to be more effective.

Therefore, challenge of the digital media towards my own self would be that how much it can fulfill or imitate other media with digital media. People can talk on the computer and Skype, but it surely feels different when people meet and talk in person. Also even though digital media can imitate the other mediums like paints or drawings, it cannot perfectly replace these mediums and that is why most of the artists go back and prefer to use the traditional medium even though we got technology to imitate those traditional mediums on the computer.

Today digital media has attained a place that must go through as a designer whether a design is for print or web. Since it has always been there and I use it all the time, digital media is something that I often take for granted but as a designer, it is something that I cannot live without. It opens a lot of possibilities towards my creations by allowing to combining all kinds of different mediums into one canvas and supports me by enabling to create realistic images that cannot be produced with traditional media.

Also as I learn more about it and as more technology improves, I am sure that digital media will make my career as a graphic designer, thus being more dynamic.