Getting started with visual communication
Table of contents for Visual Communication 101
- Getting started with visual communication
Written communication has captured for centuries the lion share of communication. From the memo to the sales letter, to the meeting minutes, most interactions at work are initiated, supported or summarized through words. Yet, there are things that words can hardly convey. And as subtle, coherent, comprehensive and precise words can be, they remain a slow, selective means of communication. It is slow because the reader needs to follow the arrangement of the text predetermined by the author to grasp the message in its entirety. It is selective because one needs to know the language to understand the message, and take action if need be.
At times, you may need a more immediate or accessible means of communication. Actually, these situations have always existed and have exploded over the course of the last decades. Examples include consumer electronics and furniture installation manuals, that have dramatically shrunk from dozens of pages in multiple languages to slim illustrated leaflets, or traffic signs, which in Europe are symbols that enable clear (most of the time) understanding of what one should do, despite the language diversity.
There is no doubt that visual communication is important today. Yet, we still spend very little time learning the required skills. If it takes learning ABCs then words - later further distinguished between nouns, verbs, adjectives, then forming sentences, to communicate well in written form, what does it take to communicate visually? This is what we will see in this series.
We will identify patterns for visual communication: needs, tools, audiences, situations, etc. These will provide you with a better sense of how you could communicate visually a message to an audience in a given context.
