VISUAL COMMUNICATION CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION WHAT IS VISUAL COMMUNICATION • Visual communication is the practice of graphically representing information to efficiently, effectively create meaning. There are many types of content in the realm of visual communication, with examples including infographics, interactive content, motion graphics, and more. The possibilities are endless. • But no matter the medium, all incorporate at least some of the following elements: interactivity, iconography, illustration, supporting text, graphs, data visualization, and animation. • Examples of where visual communication can be used include conferences and trade shows, websites, social media posts, office presentations and meetings, and so much more. • That’s why, today, the definition of content marketing success includes visual communication. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS • The history of visual communication dates back to a time where writing was not yet invented. It dates back to a time where history was persevered in paintings found on rocks and in caves dating back more than 40.000 years ago. • Fast forwarding to usage of ideograms up to the invention of the alphabet. It is save to say that visual communication has always been a part of our existence. • The invention of the alphabet was a beautiful time, because books were being published and beautiful illuminated scriptures were presented as a piece of art. We can fast forward a bit more in time and we would reach the avant-garde, modernist and finally the computer era. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS • Visual communication had changed drastically in the era of avant-garde, modernism and postmodernism. • In the modernism era, people became more concern with themselves and were placing humans being above God and it was all about improving and the reshaping the environment. • In the Postmodernism era, people lost the sense of morality completely. There were no more clear division between right or wrong, evil or good, no truth at all. We life in a era where TV Idols such a Oprah promotes humans as Gods. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 1. Cave Paintings: 15 000 - 10 000 BC • Cave paintings (also known as "Parietal Art") were the first form of visual communication. They originate to around 40 000 years ago. They were first mainly found in Asia and Europe. • To this data, researches have not been able to determine the exact purpose of the Paleolithic cave paintings. However, some evidence which has been found suggests that they were not simply decorations of living areas since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing human stay. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 2. Pictograms, ideograms and logograms: 5000 BC • A pictogram is a symbol or an icon that represents various concepts, objects, places and events, or even various activities. This is achieved through illustration. Pictograms typically represent an idea by an image. • An ideogram is a graphical symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters or sentences. • A logogram is a graphene which represents a word or morpheme. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 3. The Alphabet: 2000 BC • The first known alphabet started in ancient Egypt. The alphabet represented the language developed by Semitic workers. The ancient Egyptian alphabet was not a direct guide to the basic principles of the alphabet that had long ago been already developed. • Most modern alphabets were either descended from the ancient Egyptian one, or influenced in various ways by it. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 4. The Art of the Book: Medieval Europe (~AD 400 to AD 600) • Medieval Europe brought the introduction of books, which were named "Illuminated Manuscripts". Simply put, an Illuminated manuscript is a manuscript where text is supplemented by the addition of various decorations and illustrations. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 5. The Printing Press: 1440 • 1440 brought the invention of "The Printing Press" by Johannes Gutenberg. • The printing press revolutionised the world of visual communication by giving humans the ability to reproduce text and graphics much faster and easier instead of having to manually reproduce things. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 6. The Masters of Type: ~During the Renaissance • Calligraphy becamse a newly developed skill as well as of page layout and lettering aquired special importance. • Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks are of particular interest to historians, not only due to the beautiful illustrations and technical drawings but also through their extraordinary page layouts. • New writings required creating a new type of fonts that were more secular, more legible, and more elegant. Page designs were rapidly becoming lighter, more and more white white space was making its apperance. Thus came the first "revival wave," the first time when font artisans looked into the past in order to create better typefaces for the present. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 7. Photography and Printing: ~Industrial Revolution • The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in the late 18th and early 19th century. • Printing techniques using movable type had restricted graphic design to an inflexible grid: Anything that was to be mass printed in great volume needed to adhere to a system whereby type was set in consecutive rows of parallel lines. • Photography involves light patterns being reflected or emitted from objects that are then recorded onto a sensitive medium or storage chip through a timed exposure. The first photograph was an image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 8. Vanguard - Experimentation: 1914+ • Constructivism was an artistic and architectural movement in Russia from 1914 onward, and a term often used in modern art today, which dismissed "real" art in favour of art used as an instrument for social purposes. • Alexander Rodchenko (1891 - 1956), was one of the most versatile Constructivist artist/designers to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 9. Modernism: Late 19th Century to Early 20th • Modernism is a trend of thought which affirms the power of human beings to make, improve and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation. • By 1930, Modernism had entered popular culture. • Modern ideas in art appeared in commercials and logos, the famous London Underground logo being an early example of the need for clear, easily recognizable and memorable visual symbols. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF VISUALS 10. The Computer: Early 21st Century - Present • The modern day computer has revolutionised the entire world with the new capabilities it presents. • Modern day computers have also changed the world of graphic design. CAD software and graphic design software has allowed for new design possibilities, as well as heavily simplifying the design process as well as the editing/creation/publication process. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES • Our world is full of visuals. Visuals are an essential and expected part of the digital world too. Visual communication is communication through images and communication of ideas and information. • Thus the study of the theories of visual communication is an absolute must us designers. When designers take, edit pictures or create digital images they cannot capture the entire view in their frame. They must select a part and compose that aesthetically to appear in the frame available to them. • The knowledge and understanding of the theories of visual communication helps to do this proficiently and artistically. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES There are 2 types of theories in visual communication: • Sensual Theories are raw data from nerves transmitted to brain. • • • • Gestalt Theory Constructivism Theory Ecological Theory Perceptual Theories are meanings concluded after the stimuli are received. • • Semiotics Theory Cognitive Theory VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES • Gestalt is a german word which means "unified whole". VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES GESTALT THEORY • In 1910, psychologist Max Wertheimer had an insight when he observed a series of lights flashing on and off at a railroad crossing. It was similar to how the lights encircling a movie theatre marquee flash on and off. Wertheimer’s observation was that we perceive motion when there is nothing more than a rapid sequence of individual sensory events such as a series of lights flashing in sequence. • We visually and psychologically attempt to make order out of chaos, to create harmony or structure from seemingly disconnected bits of information. • This observation led to a set of principles about how we visually perceive objects. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES GESTALT THEORY –LAWS OF GROUPING Similarity • Similarity refers to groupings by number of characteristics can be similar: colour, shape, size, texture, etc. Thud when a viewer sees these similar characteristics, they perceive the elements to be related due to the shared characteristics. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES GESTALT THEORY –LAWS OF GROUPING Continuation • Continuance is the principle that once you start looking in a direction, you’ll continue to look in that direction until something significant catches your eye. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES GESTALT THEORY –LAWS OF GROUPING Closure • Closure occurs when an object is incomplete or a space is not completely enclosed. If enough of the shape is indicated, people perceive the whole by VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES GESTALT THEORY –LAWS OF GROUPING Proximity • Proximity occurs when elements are placed close together. They tend to be perceived as a group. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES GESTALT THEORY –LAWS OF GROUPING Figure and Ground • The eye differentiates an object form its surrounding area. a form, silhouette, or shape is naturally perceived as figure (object), while the surrounding area is perceived as ground (background). This principle shows our perceptual tendency to separate whole figures from their backgrounds based on one or more of a number of possible variables, such as contrast, color, size, etc. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES CONSTRUCTIVISM THEORY • Julian Hochberg, a psychology professor at Columbia University found that human eyes constantly in motion as they scan an image. He came up with the Constructivism Theory to explain “eye-fixations” as a way for viewers to make sense of their own perceptions. In his experiments, Hochberg used eye tracking machines to monitor what how the participants looked at an image. In the study, by using graphic images, it was found that viewers found the largest picture on a page first, and then looked the headline for the story. • Constructivism Theory helps to understand exactly how certain visual cues are noticed and how others are not noticed. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES ECOLOGICAL THEORY • This theory was founded by James J. Gibson, an American psychologist. Gibson challenged the idea that the nervous system actively constructs conscious visual perception and instead promoted ecological psychology, in which the mind directly perceives environmental stimuli without additional cognitive construction or processing. • Gibson developed what he called an “ecological approach” to the study of visual perception, according to which humans perceive their environments directly, without mediation by cognitive processes or by mental entities such as sensedata. This idea was radical because it contradicted a centuries-old model of the origins of human knowledge. As Gibson himself put it, “The old idea that sensory inputs are converted into perceptions by operations of the mind is rejected.” VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES • We interpret what we see through spatial properties in the environment: Surface layout, composition, lighting, motion, gradation, shape, size, solidity and scale. • Light is the way it reveals the three dimensionality of objects and scale, the way objects diminish as they recede from us are the two most important properties that we use to interpret space. • Many perceptions about size and depth require no “mental calculation” VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES SEMIOTICS THEORY • It is based on “semiosis,” the relationship between a sign, an object, and a meaning. Signs is simply anything that stands for something else. There are 3 types of signs with different speeds of comprehension: • Iconic –some form similarity between signs and object it represents. Easiest to understand. • Indexical –harder to interpret than icons, but still a logical connection to the thing they represent. Examples: footprint, smoke, fingerprints, crumbs VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES • Symbolic –most abstract; no logical or representational connection to the thing they represent. Examples: letters, words, numbers, colors, gestures, flags, costumes, music etc. They are the most flexible and involve manipulation of universally understood signs. • Semiotics emphasize the importance of symbolism in the visual perception and communication. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES COGNITIVE THEORY • Cognitive theory suggests that perception is not just the result of visual stimuli, but involves a series of mental processes in which we compare what we see to our memories and use those to interpret and analyse. • In other words, we understand what we’re looking at most easily by comparing it to what we’re familiar with. We are constantly on the lookout for things with which we’re familiar. • So we see, for example, faces in inanimate objects simply because some features look vaguely like eyes and a mouth, such as the man in the moon. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES COGNITIVE THEORY VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES COMPOSITIONAL THEORIES The Golden Ratio • The Golden Ratio is a mathematical ratio that describes the perfectly symmetrical relationship between two proportions. Approximately equal to a 1:1.61 ratio, the Golden Ratio can be illustrated using a Golden Rectangle and is used to create pleasing, natural looking compositions in any design work. • The Renaissance artists of 15th and 16th Centuries used divine proportion to create their paintings, architecture or sculptures. VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES The Golden Ratio VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES COMPOSITIONAL THEORIES The Rule of Thirds • The rule of thirds is one of the most useful composition technique to produce images which are more engaging and better balanced. The rule of thirds is applied by aligning a subject with the guide lines and their intersection points, placing the horizon on the top or bottom line or allowing linear features in the image to flow from section to section. • The idea is that an off-centre composition is more pleasing to the eye and looks more natural than one where the subject is placed right in the middle of the frame. It also encourages to make creative use of negative space, the VISUAL COMMUNIATION THEORIES • The Rule of Thirds Assessment task 1 • List all the theory we learn today THE END
