The ubiquity of screens, in both private (tablets, smartphones, etc.) and public (advertising or informational displays) spaces, means that graphic designers need to diversify their approaches by integrating the specificities of each medium. For example, phones and computer screens invite one to scroll more than a connected TV. Conversely, the pervasiveness of video platforms, games and, more broadly, the televisual paradigm (where the image is never fixed), all give rise to a mutation of webpage and print models. Although initially conceived on paper, a project can consequently be accessed or propagated on a large group of screens, from mobile phones to desktop computers (whereas the major softwares remain compartmentalized between media). The increasing diversity of media has brought about an evolution of the concept of visual identity, thus making it necessary to conceive design spaces that are variable and translatable. The animation of a logo henceforth becomes a design constraint that must be anticipated since an adaptation “after the fact” might not be pertinent.
Progressively, the movement becomes an obligatory step, both for reasons of efficiency (attentional competition) and as a bit of a trending fad (copying without critical perspective). For graphic designers, “going with the flow” thus becomes a paradoxical directive. Breaking with tradition means one runs the risk of being out of step with clients and prevailing tastes and habits, but excessive compliance results in stereotypical productions. For example, must one really celebrate the proliferation, on Instagram, of the animated posters that have followed in the wake of the exhibition The Moving Poster (2016), or the Demo Festival (2019)? Does the singular nature of the poster reside in its instantaneous visual impact, devoid of sequential or temporal development? Is it reductive to consider that graphic design might be intrinsically “augmented” (positively) by this movement? What effect would this animation paradigm have on form? Could animation be perceived in a manner other than as a mere adaptation or adjunct, thus making it a methodology that would enable us to generate new forms and, finally, to transcend the sterile opposition between print and digital?