Working In The Field of Visual Communication
Brief Tasks — L01
Task 1: Key Sectors in the field of visual communication
In order to work in the field of visual communication there is of course a need for understanding what branches it has and how they work. With visual communication a student will learn a broader number of topics, taking a more comprehensive approach to communicate with the clients in a visual way. The key sectors of this domain are:
Graphic Design
Graphic Design is quite narrowly focused only on making visual representations of key concepts within a visual method of communication. It is a highly specialized field that requires creating key graphics for broader advertising campaigns, websites or print materials. Because of this students pursuing this sector have to learn a larger number of key computer applications.
Illustration
Illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, video games and films.
Web Design
Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; interface design (UI); authoring; user experience design (UX); and search engine optimization. Often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers will cover them all. The term web design is normally used to describe the design process relating to the front-end (client side) design of a website.
New Media
New media are forms of media that are native to computers, computational and relying on computers for distribution. Some examples of new media are websites, mobile apps, virtual worlds, multimedia, computer games, human-computer interface, computer animation and interactive computer installations.
New media are often contrasted to “old media”, such as television, radio, and print media. New media does not include television programs (only analog broadcast), feature films, magazines, books, — unless they contain technologies that enable digital generative or interactive processes
Task 2: Choose a sector and describe origins of visual communication in this sector
Graphic design is also known as a means for visual communication that intends to convey a specific message with a purpose. The activity of graphic designing involves social, economic, cultural, technological and aesthetic values as well as graphically communicated ideas. While some associate visual communication to printing industry, the fact is that graphic design too is an effective medium to convey visual messages.
Task 3: How has visual communication developed within this sector, for example, in terms of the advent of digital technology and/or the internet?
Today, there is hardly any work in visual communication that does not require services of graphic designer. New technologies help the cause of graphic design and the designer.
Before these new technologies came around Graphic Design was still a very present branch of Visual Communication. However before the advent of programs like Photoshop and InDesign, creating logos and ads was a significantly more painstaking and time-consuming process than it is now. It involved cutting out pictures and text with razor blades, carefully gluing (or waxing) things in place, and drawing perfectly straight lines, over and over. Every single action that a graphic designer does onscreen with the click of a button and drag of the mouse amounted to the equivalent of a series of labor-intensive, rudimentary actions in the pre-digital world. Still those painstaking hours and that dedication spent working helped push the development of Graphic Design at such a fast rate.
Now, graphic design has reached new heights. Graphic design is now being addressed also as advertising design, corporate identity design, typographic design, packaging design, multimedia design, sign age design, editorial design, web design and many more.
Today, graphic design has become a “high-tech” field and the technical skills and knowledge base necessary to produce visually rich products has grown astronomically. Graphic designers create visual concepts, by hand using technologies such as screen printing machines, laser cutters and many more or using computer software such as the Adobe Suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and so on. This software can now be used on PCs, laptops, tablets and even phones.
Task 4: Describe the cultural and economic importance of visual communication within this sector.
CULTURAL
Visual Communication has an enormous influence on our society because it encompasses our lives every second of every day.
Graphic Design is in the layout of the books we read, the brands we buy, the websites we view and the social media sites we use on a daily basis.
Graphic Design can do harm in that it can advertise a deadly product, persuade impressionable people that they should look, feel, and act a certain way, or just waste important resources such as paper and energy. On the other hand, Graphic Design can save lives with crucial information, it can refresh and inspire, and can create awareness of products and lifestyles that are important to different types of people.
“Design is one of the most powerful forces in our lives, whether or not we are aware of it, and can also be inspiring, empowering and enlightening”
- critic, Alice Rawsthorn
16th-century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde for example, “invented” the common equals sign when he had tired of writing the words “is equal to” and sought a less onerous way of conveying their meaning. “Choosing a pair of parallel lines of equal length was an inspired solution, and a brilliant example of [graphic] design’s power to solve a practical problem,” writes Alice Rawsthorn in her latest book of essays, Hello World: Where Design Meets Life.
ECONOMY
As the global market shrinks with the ever growing reach of technology the need for that eye catching graphic becomes more and more valuable to a business. Graphics are required in our every day’s life. The strong meaning of graphic stimulates a person to reach for the product or feel drawn to it or to immediately decide if it’s an inferior product and has no use for it. It can also convey a message that you are established and should be taken seriously. A strong corporate identity can also convey that your company is far bigger than it actually is. You can instill a sense of trust in your target audience — If a company looks professional, your potential customers are more likely to trust that you can deliver.
Facts and Figures
The UK:
- has the second largest design sector in the world
- has the largest design industry in Europe
- is recognized for its high quality designers
- applies for the most trademarks in Europe, 4th in the world for number of applications
- is the 4th in the world for design export and exports 50% more than it exports
- says 90%of British design business gets their main competition from inside the UK
Task 5 : Explain why copyright and plagiarism are important issues for visual communication within this sector.
Copyright is the exclusive right to control reproduction and commercial exploitation of your creative work. Copyright protects any kind of artwork, including illustrations, photographs and graphic design.
Generally, the person who creates a work is considered its “author” and the automatic owner of copyright in that work under copyright law. However, there is a limited exception under the “work made for hire” doctrine: if you are an employee, your employer is considered the author and automatic copyright owner of any work you create within the scope of your employment.
When you perform graphic art services for a client, your client is paying for rights to use your work under your copyright. Identifying the scope of such rights can be the most important part of your contract with your client.
In an article for Design Observer designer and author William Drenttel writes about how ideas come from many sources in graphic design: they recur, regenerate, take new forms, and mutate into alternative forms.
Drenttel goes on to talk about how the charge of plagiarism is not a simple one. He says:
“Designers should take note: the idea of borrowing ideas is getting more complex everyday. Inherent in the modern definition of originality, though, is that ideas are extended, language expanded, and syntax redefined. Take a psychologist’s ideas and experiences, as explained through the eyes of a journalist, and turn them into a play, a work of fiction — this is a work of complex, ‘appropriation,’ I believe the design world benefits greatly from such an understanding of complexity.”
