VISUAL COMMUNICATION
COMMUNICATION
IN DESIGN
Incorporating communication objective distinguishes graphic design and illustration
from other visual arts. Managing effective design is managing both the visual
elements and accompanying communication objectives.
Example : A corporate logo must represent the image and nature of a company’s
business.
Communication directs design decisions. What needs to be said by the designer and
understood by the audience is the essence of communication design.
It is important to understand what needs to be communicated and what to use in the
design to support that need.
Communication design begins with verbal language. Advertising, marketing
publications, packaging, multimedia, and the images needed to support those
communication venues rely on concepts that are first considered as written or spoken
COMMUNICATION
IN DESIGN
Communication artists must learn the skills necessary to translate
verbal language into visual communication.
Verbal messages drive the decision-making process that
ultimately determines of graphic content and the form it needs to
take.
The objective of this advocacy design is to promote voting. The final design is a curious but
effective message. It relies on the words and the image together to communicate the intended
message. The essence of the illustration is saying, “You have no voice.” When combined with
the words, the message is complete.
Poster design by Modern Dog.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
FOUNDATIONS AND VISUAL
COMMUNICATION
o Understanding relationships between verbal language
and visual communication give designers tools for
communicating with an intended audience.
o An audience is a group of people with a specific profile or
what we call demographic in marketing.
o To be an effective designer we need to consider the
psychological foundations that influence the members of
the group.
o Those psychological foundations include how people
behave, how they think, how they feel, and how they
interact with one another.
o Behavior – refers to the actions or reactions of a person,
usually in response to environmental factors. Behavior
can be unconscious or conscious, involuntary or intentional.
Behavioral outcomes, or what is determined to be a desired
response are a key concept of design communication that
intends to persuade the viewer.
Knowing how an individual or group behaves provide
information when marketing ideas or concepts to them.
It is why..
Sports events advertises … beers and cars.
Daytime television runs medical health advertisements geared
toward senior citizens
This poster design is
satirical commentary
promoting anti-war
message. It presents
promoting an anti-war
message. It
presentations the viewer
with the behavioral
alternatives.
o Thinking – Refers to a person’s mental process, the
processing of information and intellectual understanding or
comprehension.
The ability to distinguish when a design demands a cognitive
response is critical to aesthetic choices and the arrangement
and presentation of the overall design.
Information graphics
appeal to people’s
cognitive senses. Charts
and graphs present
information that requires
analytical reasoning to
process. It provides a
visualization of the data
with entertaining
graphics. The graphics
help the viewer
appreciate the impact of
the data.
o Feeling – is emotional expression that produces
psychological change. Expressions of emotion can include
anxiety, rage, delight, animosity or compassion.
It can also be thought of as sensations experienced through the
sense of touch, visual perception, olfactory perception (smell),
auditory perception and even taste.
Images have the power to conjure feelings.
Certain shapes and colors evoke particular emotional responses.
Visual artists use color, shape, line and texture in particular
arrangements to communicate a mood or sens of feeling to their
audience.
This poster design promoting the Indie Rock
group The Wallflowers depicts a female figure,
fish and water flowers floating serenely in water.
The playful combination of graphic elements
seem to excite the viewer’s sense of sound and
touch. It graphically presents feelings of floating,
weightlessness and release. The color scheme of
overall soft blue tones contrasted by muted-red
orange graphic elements supports the intended
feel the designers had in mind.
