Hmmm...

I could see how this conversation could get unproductive quickly. So here are my most objective two cents I can bring myself to contribute on why it is that I am here:

I have been hanging out with both Tibor Kalman and J. Abbott Miller while researching for my DP. Both agree, as do I, that design/graphic design are "media" not "professions." In other words, a means to communication rather than a job. Somewhere within the subjective act of writing design/art history, (cough: Modernist Elitists) decided that design was really very separate from fine art, and graphic design particulary was pigeon-holed as a lower-art/applied craft.

This misconception is still common today, mainly because there hasn't been a whole lot of writing to its contrary by designers or otherwise, at least not that I have found. This myth or mentality is also perpetuated by the plethora of trade schools, and at least the community college that I've attended the during the summers). These institutions are most concerned with giving people job skills. What interested me about coming to the KCAI was that the major was medium.... "design" just like "painting" or "sculpture." Not the "visual communications" or whatever else that it was twisted into at nearly all the other art schools I applied to. It was design in the context of art. If that makes sense.

Okay... that's it. I hope it makes sense.