To understand the phenomenon of communicative design, in the beginning we need to briefly outline the three main lines of historical transformations that led to its occurrence.

Firstly, these are technological transformations. In the beginning there was a printed book, later appeared: telegraph, photography, telephone, radio, television, analog and digital computers. Today, scientists are actively engaged in the problem of creating a universal quantum computer that performs calculations many times faster than digital ones. The question will be the interaction of the artist and the designer with artificial intelligence.

Secondly, these are communication or media transformations. The media aspect is directly related to technological transformations, since the emergence of new communication technologies, at all times, has led to the emergence of new means of communication - the media. So it was, when a printed book appeared, it made knowledge accessible to the majority. So it was with the media, which made information available to the majority. This happens now, when communication has become available to the majority, as a result of the emergence of the global Internet.

Thirdly, this is a transformation of approaches in the field of art design, i.e. design. At each stage of the media transformation, there was a need for a specialist to adapt the content to the media. In the days of the Gutenberg book, it was a typographer. Since the end of the 19th century, when the industry required mass information of consumers, a graphic designer became such a specialist. From the middle of the 20th century, content began to be transmitted using various, not always interconnected, media. Later, the digital environment combined various media in multimedia and hypermedia.

Today, content is transmitted in the form of text, graphics, animation, video, sound and more. However, it must be interactive and independent of the medium with which it is transmitted. because he needs to be simultaneously transmitted and interacted through multiple media. As a result, a modern specialist should be able to work both with content and with various forms of its implementation.

In this regard, graphic design is a narrower area of ​​activity than communicative design, as uses only graphics in communication. Despite the fact that graphics is a very powerful expressive means of communication, nevertheless, in modern realities, graphics should be supplemented with movement (animation and video), interactivity with sound and more.

Thus, communicative design is an art and design activity for the transfer of content simultaneously with the help of various media.