Visual Communication

"Visual communication...

...as the name suggests is communication through visual aid and is described as the conveyance of ideas and information in forms that can be read or looked upon. Visual communication in part or whole relies on vision, and is primarily presented or expressed with two dimensional images, it includes: signs, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, colour and electronic resources. It also explores the idea that a visual message accompanying text has a greater power to inform, educate, or persuade a person or audience."

source: Wiki

The history of visual communication

Why is it interesting to travel back in time to know something about visual communication? There are a lot of reasons! We can learn about the differences about verbal and non-verbal communication form, and we can see the development of the world and the connections between people. How did they talk to each other or simply how did they try to express themselves…

 In the ages 40.000 year ago there weren’t been writing, people were talking simply in words. They didn’t learn arts; they were fighting for their lives. There was no paper or pencil; just a few people had been painting on rocks. These people were usually shamans and tried to express themselves to god in a psychedelic state of mind.

“An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.”
source: Wiki

Since the old Egyptian culture the people have been using ideograms. It’s almost, or a type of writing. It is still a more emotional communication form, but usually these are more concrete than the words, that is the reason why are we still using this form.

Johannes Gutenberg



History of the alphabet starts in ancient Egypt (around 2000BC). It was a very huge step in the history of mankind. It has changed the thinking process and after that the people could communicate to each other easier.

After that the humans thought they have to collect their ideas in a book. And they had right. From those ages we know much more about the history. In 1447 Johannes Gutenberg printed the first press. His biggest work was the Bible. In those times of course the religion was the main guidance.

Louis Daguerre

When people got bigger knowledge with the help of books, they sought to document the reality. In the 19^th century they made Daguerreotypes, after that they made photographs.

After they got the reality the curve turned back again. In the era of avant-garde and modernists the mankind tried to express more emotional. They were painting surrealist and cubist picture.

And nowadays in the ages of Aquarius, when everywhere we go we can meet with computers the life turns in a virtual form. Less people read books, and there are no concrete differences between good and bad. That is the reason, why the people don’t care about the facts. Everybody try to express their emotions and they can do it easier in pictures than words. Maybe in a day when we will be more advanced we won’t use words, we will communicate telepathy and we will send just feelings to each other.

Visual literacy

Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading.

 

Semiotics

“Things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.”
Gunther Kress

Semiotics prescribes that this process can be analysed by looking at the following 3 levels:

 Semantics: Relation between signs and the things they refer to.
    (Meaning)

 Syntactics: Relation of signs to each other in formal structures.
   (Form)

 Pragmatics: Relation of signs to their impacts on those who use them.
  (Function)

There is no visual communication without semiotics. Everybody can draw without the desire to express it to others, but it is not communication. If you want to tell a story or just a feeling you have to comply with some rules. The question what your target group is. You can’t use colors if you want to draw something to color-blind man and you can’t express yourself to a newborn in mathematic.

There aren’t any concrete rules in visual communication; in pictures you can use everything, not like in words. But there is an imagine in the people mind, how to read a visual work; and there are technics, which are more useful than the others. If you use these technics you walk on an easier way to get connection with your target group.

And there are thousands and thousands situation every day when you have to use signs, which everybody have to use. These signs usually have to be as simple and as understandable as they can. If we want to create a sign like this, we can’t trust in the people cognitivism, just in that case if we make advertise or we have a specified target group.

Semiotic analysis

This picture is a frame from the Clockwork orange. It had made by camera, and it was cutting out from the film. This is representation of the four main characters and I think it paints a very impressive picture about them. After this vision we want to know their story and their feelings. We don’t know anything about them, we have just some feelings that they are a group and they are evil.

They wear the same hats and clothes; they put their legs on naked girls and they drink milk. The word behind them is unknown, but we know this is not just a simple milk bar. It has mysteries. The story of this film had been written in a novel, but wasn’t success. This story needed a good vision from the director Stanley Kubrick, who made these guys interesting.

Usually we are just look on the pictures and we go forward, but if we are looking on them a little bit longer we can learn about the elements, which work in them to make them more expressive.

Digital storytelling

According to The Center for Digital Storytelling, there are 7 key elements of digital storytelling.

Point of View
Dramatic Question
Emotional Content
Voice and Images
Sound Track
Economy
Pacing

In a digital storytelling almost every part are an important part. Every picture, voice and sounds have to mediate the same meaning. If we make a sad story, we have to choose sad music and an environment that makes the story sadder. Also important, that the story must have a beginning, a middle and an end. The creator and viewer need a storyline which accompanies them through the way.

My opinion it the most important parts in a digital storytelling are the point of view and the dramatic question. In nowadays usually the context sells the product, not the contain. The context is important, because you have to communicate your information to others, and you have to do it in an intelligent way, if you want to get positive results. But it is a wrong thinking method, because the critics are always talking about the context and not about the contain.

This is the reason of reality shows success and the fall of conservative arts. In this fast digital world everybody wants to get more and more information and the quality doesn’t matter.  It is very rare if the contain have a concrete meaning and have a honest emotional content and have an impressive context.

I think there is a very massive gun in the mankind hand with digital storytelling, but we still can’t use it because of our animal instincts. Everybody wants to do better and better than the others, and we usually forget the goal what we are fighting for.