It goes without saying that a person who can draw can learn to use a computer, but it doesn't work the other way around. Therefore, artistic talent or a good sense of design is always going to be highly prized. However, it is difficult to argue that the computer has become a new 21st century medium for art, as well as commercial design. Artists who limit their computer exposure today are limiting their options, both in their career and in their creative avenues.
What is digital?
Digital art and design is defined by its process, which depends highly on the computer. "Going digital" doesn't mean you give up using traditional methods. Rather, since most media today are processed via computers, any traditional drawing, painting, photography or video would be imported into the computer for additional processing.
At first computer art was clunky, but today it is seamless. Since the invention of the computer, the worlds of art and design have slowly migrated over to this technology. At first it was extremely expensive so that only the largest businesses could employ the new effects that could be produced by computer graphics. In the 1990's things really took off for digital art, specifically in the realm of affordability. By the beginning of the 21st century, digital art technology was affordable to most average consumers. Today, due to affordability and efficiency, the entire design industry has gone digital. Additionally, many artists today are also employing these tools in the fine art field.
There are wide variety of art-based computer software products available today that incorporate every aspect of the traditional creative processes, to include drawing, painting, airbrushing, photo editing, video editing, special effects video editing, animation, three dimensional design (sculpture, architecture, products, automobiles), and sound editing.
What is it that makes "going digital" so necessary to us?
Digital art technology has changed the aesthetic landscape for art and design. Today, movies, photographs and colorful abstract images have a different look and feel that is robust and rich. Architecture and automobiles actually look more dynamic today because of the effects that computer design software has had on their production. There now is a vocabulary of aesthetic effects that can only be created on a computer. Great designers and artists are playing with these tools, and coming up with new techniques and styles all the time.
Digital technology has also increased efficiency. Artists often use computers for sorting out design problems, before executing the artwork in their favorite medium. Additionally, most businesses, including the manufacturing industry, the commerical design industry and the entertainment industry are saturated with computers that solve all kinds of problems. A simple typesetting job can be completed with ease by a child in an elementary school today and utilize more aesthetic options than a tradesman could have accomplished a quarter century ago, simply because the computer has made it so easy.
Connections Between Digital Technology and Success
Today, kindergarden children are being taught with technology more and more. Children are making podcasts or web pages for book reports, for example. Computer technology is mandated in the public school curriculum. Many art departments have digital art classes today as well. This is because it is recognized that computers are central tools for success in the 21st century.
Almost all jobs in the commerical art industry today require computer skills, not to mention that most jobs require computer skills of some sort. Consider the advent of the internet in the last twenty years, and all of the jobs producing content for the World Wide Web. Computers produce this content, which is then viewed on computers. Consider telecommunications, and the changes in our communication devices, which are slowly becoming portable visual and sound media players, playing content that is produced on computers. A person who is trained in computer graphics applications can utilize their skills in the corporate design industry, the entertainment industry, or in the fine arts.
It is interesting to imagine what kinds of new jobs will be created out of new technologies in the future. Jobs of the future will most likely continue to increase their need for computer skills. It is highly likely that the designers that support the economy in the future will continue to employ digital art tools. It is also quite possible that the artists that theorize about culture will see digital technology as an integral element in the future of art.
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"You can't do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enormously."
- Wim Crouwel |

"Digitally created artwork has emerged along with the rapid development in computer technology and is showing up in many galleries. It has also revived the age old question, "Yes, but is it art?"
-Bob McMurray |

"Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking ."
- Milton Glaser |
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