I was a bit perplexed yesterday when I stumbled upon a new “answer” site called ChaCha that attempts to answer questions put to it (I’d been searching for info about a client and was searching with my name as part of the search parameters, and ended at this page).

Here’s the question posed to the site:

“Q: Who is the first artist that turned fine art into graphic design?”

Well that sounds straight forward enough.

But the answer made me feel like someone had pulled a late April Fools day trick on me.

So who was the artist who turned fine art into graphic design?

ChaCha’s answer: “Although not exact, Duncan Long is often credited with the earliest use of graphic design.”

Well, a nice honor but… Seriously???

Now I suppose my illustration borders on fine art. And I do graphic design work for logos and book covers. So I might (and that’s a mighty “might”) conceivably be in the running.

Or perhaps it is just another April Fools Day escapade gone wrong from someone that has not yet sprung the final trap on me. After all, a few friends have vowed revenge for being mislead by my Inaugural Illustrator Announcement.

History will decide. I am honored by ChaCha’s claim, but I’m not sure the whole jury has come to a decision on this just yet.

I’ll cross my fingers.