Graphic design practice embraces a range of cognitive skills, aesthetics and crafts, including typography, visual arts and page layout. Like other forms of design, graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated. It is usually viewed as a superset of technical illustration.
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Graphic Designer Needs a Web CMS
While you can create very powerful content management solutions with most open-source packages -- they have a much steeper learning curve than you experienced with HTML or Flash.
Byrne, Tony. CMSworks (2004). Articles>Content Management>Graphic Design
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Review: Graphic Designer's Digital Printing and Prepress Handbook 
The Graphic Designer's Digital Printing and Prepress Handbook is not a beginner's manual. Sidles does not walk you step-by-step through the basics of trapping or scanning. Instead, hers is an approach that expands on the knowledge of the graphic design professional. I think her aim is to help you become someone who easily knows how to avoid buying paper that will curl or using overprinted type that is illegible. Sidles, with her print production experience, seems to care about sharing the wisdom she has acquired through decades of haps and mishaps—no small benefit.
Blount Brodersen, Carolyn. Technical Communication Online (2004). Articles>Reviews>Prepress>Graphic Design
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This paper examines raster and vector file formats and explains the details necessary to transform them for use in various output devices. Methodologies and suggestions for raster-to-vector, vector-to-raster, resampling of raster, 3-dimensional vector to 2-dimensional vector, and 2-dimensional vector to 2-dimensional vector conversions are discussed.
Porter, Sara J. STC Proceedings (2004). Design>Graphic Design>Image Editing
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This course introduces visual thinking, visual expression, and the practice of graphic design. First, it teaches general princples of graphic design. Then it teaches about the components of graphic design: typography, page and screen design, picture and symbols, and corporate identity.
Carliner, Saul. Bentley College (2000). Academic>Courses>Graphic Design
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Graphic Propaganda: Cultural Expressions in Time of War 
The media is a battlefield where moral systems collide. Ownership tilts it. TV channels and newspapers in the U.S. promote their business interests by supporting a probig business government and its war. Even The New York Times, which opposed invading Iraq without UN consent, did so in a way unlikely to rock the boat—and clearly in direct contrast to the intention of Britain’s Daily Mirror. The Mirror's front page, designed to generate newsbox sales by aggressively engaging the man in the street, is as pointed and artistically crafted as an editorial cartoon.
Shinn, Nick. ShinnType (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Typography
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Graphical Design in TCO: Video and Animation
This report is intended to give an overview of graphical design in the technical communication field as it pertains to the areas of video and animation. The purpose of this report is to a) establish core knowledge areas, b) provide information to both students and professionals in TCO, c) demonstrate excellence in TCO at Mercer University, and d) help students decide on what internships and jobs they wish to pursue. This report includes a summary and background of the video and animation field, the methods by which the information was obtained, an organized presentation of the collected information, and a series of recommendations for those going into this field.
Davis, Marjorie T. and William H. Harris II. Mercer University (2002). Careers>Multimedia>Graphic Design
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In this chapter we show you techniques to optimize the look and efficiency of your Web page graphics. Although electronic publishing frees you from the cost and limitations of color reproduction on paper, you will still need to make careful calculations (and a few compromises) if you wish to optimize your graphics and photographs for various display monitors and Internet access speeds.
Lynch, Patrick J. and Sarah Horton. Yale University (1999). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design
#15037
One of the nice things about technical writing courses is that most of the papers have graphics in them — or at least they should. A lot of professional, technical writing contains graphics — drawings, diagrams, photographs, illustrations of all sorts, tables, pie charts, bar charts, line graphs, flow charts, and so on. Once you get the hang of putting graphics like these into your writing, you should consider yourself obligated to use graphics whenever the situation naturally would call for them. Unlike what you might fear, producing graphics is not such a terrible task — in fact, it can be fun. You don't have to be a professional graphics artist or technical draftsperson to produce graphics for your technical writing. There are ways to produce professional-looking graphics with tape, scissors, white-out, and a decent photocopying machine.
McMurrey, David A. Illuminati Online. Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Graphics and Web Design Based on Edward Tufte's Principles
This is an outline of Edward Tufte's pioneering work on the use of graphics to display quantitative information. It mainly consists of text and ideas taken from his three books on the subject along with some additional material of my own. This page is in text only format: in order to understand the concepts you need to read the books because the concepts cannot really be grasped without the illustrations, and current video monitor technology is too low in resolution to do them justice. His work has been described as 'a visual Strunk and White.'
University of Washington-Seattle (1999). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Graphics Don't Appear or Won't Print
Objects in the drawing layer are visible in Page Layout (Print Layout) view and Print Preview but not in Normal view. Interestingly, a frame is a sort of hybrid object that can appear to float (and text can be wrapped around it), but it is actually inline and can be viewed (though not in position) in Normal view.
Barnhill, Suzanne and Dave Rado. Word MVP Site, The (2005). Articles>Graphic Design>Software>Microsoft Word
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A collection of technical illustrations submitted and collected by professional technical illustrators.
VisualJournalism. Academic>Course Materials>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Graphics Libraries section gives links to public domain graphics libraries all over the Web.
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There is no limit in the Web specifications to the graphical formats that can be used on the Web. You just need a MIME type so that the format is labelled correctly for transfer across the Web, and so that a suitable viewer (if one exists) can be located at the other end. In practice, certain formats are more widely understood than others; certain formats are more suited to one type of graphical data than another; so you should make an informed choice about what format to use.
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Graphics, Design and Technical Communication: Exploring Disciplinary Boundaries 
How much about graphics and visual design should the courses in our technical communication programs cover? This has become a programmatic issue because technical writing has become more graphically dependent. This is true in many arenas: when designing electronic or print documents suchas brochures, issues such as color theory, perspective, and proportionality come into play along with the rhetoric of the written word. The crossover between the visual and the linguistic is most evident in newmedia, especially in Web design.
LaGrandeur, Kevin. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Design>Graphic Design>TC
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A hypothetical example to help technical communicators think through ethical issues in the workplace.
Bryan, John G. Intercom (2003). Articles>Graphic Design>Ethics>Charts and Graphs
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Gratuitous Graphics and Human-Centered Website Design
Notice how frustrating most company websites are. Lots of pretty pictures that take forever to load. Hardly any information on a page. Notice how difficult it is to find the information you seek, and especially, how difficult it is to do comparison shopping. Don't companies realize that in today's world, the website is a great opportunity to practice customer-centered interaction -- make the customers happy and they will come back again and again? Frustrate them and, well, the competition is only a click away.
Norman, Donald A. JND.org (1999). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design
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The Guide to Effective Illustration: Images for Presentation and Publication
An important part of modern communication is the use of images, both with oral presentations and in publications, to convey the essence of the author's message. As the methods of preparing, transmitting, and presenting images proliferate, we are all challenged to make the best use possible of each imaging technology.
Walworth, Vivian, Mary McCann, John McCann and Louis Rosenblum. Society for Imaging Science and Technology, The (1999). Books>Information Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
#26066
Illustrations and technical graphics are essential to any technical documentation. They assist users' understanding by simplifying complex content through clear, understandable and effective information. A primary objective of technical documentation is to ensure that users use products effectively and safely. Graphics and illustrations assist in accomplishing this objective. Striking the right balance between text and graphics enables documentation to be effective support to product use. This article recommends a few guidelines and best practices to adopt when working with illustrations and graphics in technical documents.
Chava, Uday. Indus (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
#28384
Guild of Natural Science Illustrators
The GNSI is a non-profit organization that sets high professional standards, provides opportunities for professional and scholarly development, encourages and assists member networking, and promotes itself to potential clients and the general public.
GNSI. Organizations>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Scientific Communication
#19995
Review: Half the Truth and Something Like the Truth
As an art director, I'm an avowed secret handshake guy from way back. They teach it to us in design school when they make us swear on a stack of Pantone color selectors and old type specimen books that we'll never reveal the secrets of the design world, especially to editors and writers (word people). Early reviews of Type & Layout have been ecstatic, so I had wondered whether someone had finally sold the secret handshake to the enemy. I shouldn't have worried. This is not really a design book, and it is not a book that most designers are going to care for. What worries me is that nondesigners won't know that.
Fleshman, Steven D. Editorial Eye, The (1995). Articles>Reviews>Graphic Design
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Hand Tinting a Photograph with Photoshop
Before the age of color film, when black-and-white photography was the only option, it was common practice for photographers to tint a black-and-white image with colored dyes to mimic real-life colors. Although we now have all the advantages of stunning color photography, we can still use Photoshop to replicate this technique, and add great charm to black-and-white images.
Shelbourne, Tim. Photoshop Tips and Tricks (2006). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
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Compared to GIF and JPEG, the PNG file format has a lot to offer: smaller file sizes, higher quality, and superb transparency. All you need are a few guidelines and techniques to expand your design toolbox.
Sawyer McFarland, Dave. Creative Pro (2007). Design>Graphic Design>Image Editing>Standards
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Help! Tips for Working in Photoshop 7
A 'quick start' guide to creating graphics using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.
Agena, Kate. Purdue University (2003). Articles>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop
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Electronic Publishing magazine discusses the current activities related to standards development in the graphic arts. If you've been wanting to understand more, this is a great article to give you a background on standards development.
McDowell, David Q. PennWell (2003). Articles>Graphic Design>Standards
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La Historia de la Visualización
La historia de la visualización es la de la búsqueda de nuevos artefactos para amplificar la capacidad de conocer, es la historia de la escritura y de los mapas, la historia del conocimiento.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2002). (Spanish) Design>Graphic Design>History
