Graphic Design is artwork produced digitally, so they are not expected to have elements made in the real world using traditional media. Before computers made this digital leap, most work was done with a vacuum frame and graphic film in a dark room setting. Light-tables were used to cut masks (or stencils) out of a material called ruby-lith or other materials that were opaque to the light source. Half-tone film screens were used to convert conventional photography into this black or white, positive or negative film environment. Even color separations used to be created with filters that limited the spectra to certain wavelengths so that several half-tone images in Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black would resemble a color photograph.

Today, there are digital filters for just about every visual effect you’ve ever seen. You can imagine these as small applications or programs to perform very specific functions in image processing.

Graphic Design is also generally reproduced in a variety of print methods in unlimited production runs. Also, there is seldom much regard for the archival quality of these prints, so the expected life-span of the object is highly variable.