05/05/2026
Something that always stuck with me was how jarring the culture at university felt from how I saw graphic design. To me, it's simply a visual language; a tool to be wielded for any intention, but always to communicate.
My tutor once said, to paraphrase: "Being a Graphic Designer is like being an illusion sorcerer." It always sat wrong with me. Like designers were meant to be painting brands as what they aren't, covering reality with a gossamer veil. Illusion is about controlling perception; you build a version of the brand that performs a role. The designer as an author, writing fiction for the audience to believe.
I've always preferred the idea of design as evocation. To evoke feeling, pulling the true intention to the surface. You're not inventing something, you're surfacing it. The brand already exists in the values, the culture, the reason the business was started. The designer's job is to find it and give it form. To make someone feel what was always there.
Illusion says: here is what we want you to think. Evocation says: here is what this actually is. One creates a mask, the other removes it.
