Visual Communication Theory

What is Visual Communication?




Visual communication from theory to practise - I found this book very resourceful and it also gave me a more in depth explanation to visual communication than I already knew. A point I took from the book was " why focus on an audience? ". Aiming a design at a mass audience is very easy as what is produced is subjective but by narrowing your audience it makes sure that the message you are trying to portray gets through without being questioned and only your audience then will really take interest to your design which is what I would be trying to do. This is a prime example as to why it is very important to understand your audience because if you try to guess or ignore the tastes of your audience the outcome will be disastrous.


Visual communication can also be very simple, for example type is a very simple way to portray various types of communication. Type is relevant in brands and logo's - every company will have some form of visual communication and the way they have been designed as this will effect their audience.


The visual communication from theory to practise book also talks about how the visual communication of the page layout for the " Wall street " newspaper, which allows the typical busy life of a business man to be able to read for short amounts of time but still take in a lot of information. The simple tabloid papers on the other hand are aimed at people who have a little spare time on their hands - people who will sit for a while to read the newspaper, so the front covers have simple yet jaw dropping headlines. These headlines are aimed so that when you look at them your interested as to what has happened.


Visual communication even occurs in products - energy drinks are a prime example of this as the typical colours used are blue, red and silver. In this case cliches aren't always a bad thing as trying to stay original risks confusing busy shoppers and confounding their expectations . Another example at visual communication is Tesco's value food, the packaging on their products are most of the time blue and white - this really does give the cheap feel to them and makes it easier to find their products so the visual communication of the packaging is aimed at people who want a cheap shop.


The book also cleverly indicates that if your visual communication is weak then people will have various ideas and views on what it is that they are looking at. If you want a design to portray an image aimed at a certain audience then it is important to make it clear for example; picture an image of a house at night  and you are standing about ten meters from it and only one light is on, your initial message is to portray that someone has burgled this house, now, any other person looking at that image may think differently for example someone else might think that its a welcome to a warm cozy looking home, another might think that someone is up late and watching television.


In terms of this current project, Google who I have chosen for YCN have their visual communication already made. Googles design is very very simplistic and they love large amounts of plain space. Google design in a way which mostly anyone can understand which widens their audience. As Google have a set design I have constraints which I have to work within this can make things slightly more difficult as I cannot do what I want .