I honestly see no connection to SEO from graphic design. Unless you are going to try to keyword stuff a page with white text on a white background. Last I checked, Google can still see no pictures or Flash. So from a SEO standpoint, you would want fast loading graphics that don't slow down the speed test. The joke that goes around the web with professional SEO people is that its better to scan a whole book page by page for the rich unique content, than to create a flashy page with insane graphics. Google understands the content, not how "pretty" the website is.
Thats why Text rich sites get insane pagerank like wikipedia and many gov't sites loaded with boring texts.