Graphic design as a tool for promotion of political campaigns 2020, with specificity to Kampala

Abstract

Graphic design is the process of visual communication through the use of typography, photography, iconography and illustration. Graphic design is basically the art, profession and academic discipline whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Therefore, it is an interdisciplinary branch of design whose foundations and objectives revolve around the definition of problems and the determination of objectives for decision-making, through creativity, innovation and lateral thinking along with digital tools, transforming them for proper interpretation. This activity helps in the optimization of graphic communications. It is also known as visual communication design, visual design or editorial design. The role of the graphic designer in the communication process is to encode or interprete the message. They work on the interpretation, ordering and presentation of visual messages. The design work always starts from a client's demand. Graphic design transforms a linguistic message into a graphic manifestation. Graphic design has different areas of knowledge focused on any visual communication system. Graphic design for instance is applied in advertising strategies. (For this research, political campaigns have been considered as advertising strategies). In Uganda, graphic design is only associated with the production of sketches and drawings and printed material, this is incorrect, since graphic design is a small part of a huge range of types and classes where it can be applied. Graphic designers are professionals that create and combine a range of types and classes to form visual representations of ideas and messages.