Because it’s sole reason for existing is for commercial purposes. To either sell the toothpaste it is wrapped around, tickets to the event who’s poster it adorns or perhaps more indirectly, as part of a ‘brand image’ a company is trying to adhere to a product or service. In order to sell that product or service.

Naturally, many other personal considerations creep in during the gestation phase, but from its inception to birth, it always exists with a commercial end in mind. A tube through which other people’s ideas are fed in order to be polished until they shine.

Which is an ancillary difference: it is never of pure origin. The vast majority of what constitutes modern graphic design is instigated by someone other than the person who actually does the designing. Many a commentator has waxed lyrical about the possibilities for collaboration and ‘problem solving’ that this process affords, and that is all well and good. But through this it becomes, at best, a group expression, at worst, a series of flailing compromises.

So then, without peering too far down the bottomless pit of the question of what art actually is, I will say that I believe art should be unburdened by commercial influence. It is not now and perhaps never truly was, but what differentiates it from graphic design is that its sole reason for existing is not commercial. And, ideally, it is an honest, singular vision from the depths of a person’s unknown. The instigator is the creator and the outcome is personal, hopefully profound.

All this may sound a little negative, but I am realistically, haltingly fond of graphic design. Considering that she is a corporate whore through and through, she does accommodate personal creativity rather well. There are nooks and crannies here and there, sinkholes into which the designer can pour themselves and come to feel some personal connection with the final output. To be proud that it’s their toothpaste packet.