visual communication

Mdes PowerPoint presentation 3: Visual Communication

Visualcommunication

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 solely 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.

Introduction


Visual Communication has been used by man for tens of thousands of years. Art is thought to have started around 100,000 .BC and was used as a purely aesthetical decorative invention. Around 32,000.BC cave art (pictured left) started appearing around caves in Europe.

Although aesthetically pleasing it is theorised that these paintings were ways of communicating of commemorating hunts and marking there territory.



Stone Tool-Blombos Cave

Pictograms, ideograms and logograms

A stone aged tool found in Blombos cave in Southern Africa it is believed to date from 80,000.BC. One of the earliest examples of art.

Cave Painting-Lascaux France



A “pictogram” or “pictograph” is a symbol used to represent an object, a place, an event or a concept with an illustration. It’s basically a form of writing in which ideas are transmitted through drawing. It is the basis of cuneiform writing which uses drawings as phonetic letters. An ideogram is a symbol which represents an idea. Pictograms were used by the ancient Chinese as early as 5000 BC. They predated the famous Sumerian cuneiforms in Mesopotamia.

Hyroglyphics-Egypt Thebes-Egypt

Egyptian hieroglyphs are a writing system used by the Ancient Egyptians, that contained a combination of logographic, alphabetic, and ideographic elements. Hieroglyphs emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt.



Cuneiform-Sumerian

This is an early form of script originating in Ancient Sumeria (Modern Day Iraq). It was created as a way of keeping accounts.

Clay was chosen as the standard medium of writing, for it was readily available, malleable, and recyclable, yet durable when dried in the sun or baked. Reeds, which grow abundantly in marshes and along riverbanks, were used to make writing implements called reed styli. For most types of records and documents, clay was formed into rectangular tablets, but for certain purposes cones, balls, prisms, and other shapes were used! To write on clay, one would impress the tip of a reed stylus into the surface and draw it along to make each stroke of a sign.

Cuneiform-Sumerian



Rosetta Stone-Egypt

Modern English Alphabet

Ancient and modern alphabets

Phoenician & Greek

The Rosetta stone is an example of three ancient forms of written script Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Egyptian Demotic and ancient Greek.

The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was the for runner to all modern alphabets.

The Alphabet was adopted by western Europe and then the world from the Greek alphabet. The Cumae form of the Greek alphabet was carried over by Greek colonists from Euboea to the Italian peninsula, where it gave rise to a variety of alphabets used to inscribe the Italic languages. One of these became the Latin alphabet, which was spread across Europe as the Romans expanded their empire


Visual communicationSymbolism: Art and power

Star Spangled Banner Holbein-The Ambassadors Hammer & Sickle

The United States flag like most national flags has been design to describe and emulate what the nation wants to portray and communicate to the outside world. The 50 stars represent the 50 states of the U.S.A and the 13 stripes signify the original colonies. Also the bold and powerful colour contrasts seem to tell all that this nation see itself as powerful.

This famous painting by Hans Holbein the younger is full of subtle symbolism. Giving the viewer hints of there power and religious beliefs. The full details and meaning of the symbols are still not fully known.

This is the symbol of one of the biggest political and social movements in modern history. It encapsulates exactly the sentiments of Communism. Communism was supposed to be the equitable political movement, representative of the people. The hammer represents . The hammer stands for the industrial working class and the sickle represents agricultural workers “the people”.



Traffic LightsSign Language

Colour and physical communication

Sign language is the essence of a visual language. Different hand states and movements represent different letters or words.

Colour is a silent language that affects our behavioural response in our daily lives. An About.com entry on colour symbolism points out that different colours evoke different emotions in humans. Red generally symbolizes danger or warning, making it a good choice for "stop." Green is calming to us, probably because it is prolific in nature and a sign of health and abundance, so it might have lent itself to mean "go."

Mdes PowerPoint presentation 3: Visual Commination

Visual communicationVisual communication in politics

Obama-Populist Poster Russian Communist Poster

This is the iconic hope poster designed by Shepard Fairey. This was not Barack Obama’s official campaign poster at first and originally only 200 copies were printed but as it was exposed to the internet it’s popularity and snowballed and it was quickly adopted as the official campaign image. For many in sunned up the message of his campaign.

This is a typical example of a politically driven soviet propaganda poster. It shows the industrious soviet worker (the hero) fulfilling his duties. It has a very tangible feeling of productivity and progress.


Visual communicationVisual identification

These are letters form famous brand logos. The fact that many people can identify the brand by just one letter is testament to the logos success. Iconic logos conjure up more than brand recognition through there popularity and repetition the brands take on meaning.

visual communication

Education

Transcript of visual communication