Principles of Graphic Design

Despite their apparent simplicity, effective graphic design is not created randomly or by chance. Outstanding graphic design follows design principles that aid in their success. These principles are conceptual ideas that assist graphic designers in the creation of great designs.
One of the most important principles of graphic design is balance; the picture must be balanced correctly for the intended effect. If you intend to make the piece jarring and intense, a leaning to the left could be required, or a steep tangent. Likewise if you desire a calm effect, and straight up and down balance would help.
Another important focus is emphasis. There is a great trend at the moment in graphic design towards simplicity and minimalism. Emphasis would be the part of your piece that you have chosen to catch the eye of the viewer - perhaps a single black tree on a white background.
On the other end of the scale but no less important is variety. Emphasis is sometimes not what a particular piece needs and then variety may be brought in; for example a repeated pattern in different colours, to grab the eye. Variety makes the page interesting.

Package Design

Package design is the art of designing packaging to make it look attractive to the potential consumer. It is an area of design which most people who live off of graphics venture into, being easy and making a lot of money. An example of graphic design is the brand logos such as Nike or Puma. Despite their apparent simplicity, a lot of thought goes in to such logos.

Graphics and Photography

One difference between photography and other forms of graphics is that a photographer just records a single moment in reality, with seemingly no interpretation. However, a photographer can choose the field of view and angle, and may also use other techniques, such as various lenses to distort the view or filters to change the colors. Even in the early days of photography, there was controversy over photographs of enacted scenes that were presented as 'real life' (especially in war photography, where it can be very difficult to record the original events). Shifting the viewer's eyes ever so slightly with simple pinpricks in the negative could have a dramatic effect.
Graphic photography is only graphics because the photographs are manipulated using graphics. People can create photorealist pictures using graphic tools, but they don't look like real pictures and are essentially computer paintings.

Graphic Illustration

An illustration is a visual representation such as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art which is focused on content rather than form. The aim of an illustration is to emphasise or decorate a story, poem or piece of writing, by providing a visual representation of something described in the text.
Graphic illustration has been in use since computer design came about, and nowadays is more common than hand illustration.
Some examples of graphic illustration.

Social Realism

A social realist photograph of a Mexican migrant with her children (c. 1930)

Social Realism is an artistic movementc which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through 'unvarnished' pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic. The movement originated because of the Great Depression - 'rich people liked to go out and take pictures of the noble poor people working away in their fields, starving in their houses...they did not think that possibly the joke might be on them'
The movement is a style of painting in which the scenes depicted typically convey a message of social or political protest edged with satir (this is not to be confused with Socialist Realism, the official USSR art form that was institutionalized by Joseph Stalin in 1934 and later allied Communist parties worldwide).
The Mexican painter Frida Khalo is associated with this movement; as are Edward Hopper, Jack Levine, Doris Lee and Diego Riviera.
The movement encompasses photography, photo-realist painting, murals, and portraiture.
Many artists who subscribed to Social Realism were painters with socialist (but not necessarily Marxist) political views. It achieved some popularity in the Eastern Bloc, but is often confused with Socialist Realism.

Spider Diagram

A spider diagram showing certain things which have influenced art in the last century. Several art movements have risen up in protest or support of these events; for example, the introduction of cameras and mobile technology spawned photorealism, in revolt; and again Futurism, in support.

Photorealism

Photorealism is a genre of painting which uses cameras and photographs to create a painting which looks like a photograph. Although the height of photorealism was in the 1970's, it is a movement which continues today in the 21st century, even though many of the original pioneers have died.Chuck Close, Tom Blackwell, Ralph Goings and Charles Bell are all photorealist artists.
Photorealism evolved from Pop Art and Abstract Impressionism in the late 1960's and early 1970's America. Pop Art and Photorealism were both reactionary movements stemming from the ever increasing and overwhelming abundance of photographic media, which by the mid 20th century had grown into such a massive phenomenon that it was 'threatening to lessen the value of imagery in art'.