Embracing the Visual Vernacular Drives Genuine Connection for Brands
The story of visual communication is in many ways the story of human history. Before the written word, early humans recorded significant events on cave walls through painted expressions of a visual language. Figures drawn in the dirt helped guide hunter-gatherers to food sources. Burgeoning city–states constructed elaborate systems of religious imagery to better understand their place in the universe. And today, world leaders tweet emojis to communicate policy changes.
Visual communication has always been our most natural form of expression. After all, it connects with the brain 60,000 times faster than any other form of communication.
Successful visual communication relies on a set of unwritten norms, an agreement on the underlying meaning of universal imagery. Common visual cues do, of course, vary across geographical and cultural lines. Nonetheless, this visual vernacular enables two complete strangers to communicate significant meaning through symbols and imagery alone. It’s a designer’s job to embrace that vernacular, leveraging it to communicate meaning as efficiently and effectively as possible.
It’s incredibly important to be fair to your data and to properly communicate it within the structures of our shared visual language.
The challenge comes from the often-experienced pressure placed on creative teams to “make things more designed,” which typically assumes the design isn’t eye-catching enough. This pressure can lead designers to disregard this shared visual language in order to add more razzle-dazzle to designs. Don’t fall victim to this.
Nonetheless, this visual vernacular enables two complete strangers to communicate significant meaning through symbols and imagery alone. From color theory and the careful choice of typography to following visual hierarchy best practices, tapping into our visual vernacular is one of the most important elements of any design.
That’s why it’s a designer’s job to embrace that vernacular, leveraging it to communicate meaning as efficiently and effectively as possible.
So let’s look at some common errors we see when designers overlook the visual vernacular for the sake of what looks good, or because they’ve misunderstood the data at hand.
Information Design
In the field of information design, it is critical to understand your audience’s visual expectations. If you push against those expectations, you’ll confuse your audience and guide them to incorrect beliefs. At best, this could lead to an unintentional mistreatment of information; at worst, it is a deliberate misleading of the audience to further a particular agenda.
Take the following graph from Reuters, for example:
We’ve all been trained that up means up and down means down. This is our shared assumption with line graphs as well: Up shows increase and down shows decrease. That way, if you were to strip away all the labels from a typical line graph you could still infer whether that graph showed growth or decline.
In the example above, however, Reuters inverted this rule, choosing for up to be down, and down to be up. Instead of seeing the passage of the “Stand Your Ground” law as a potential catalyst of a marked increase in gun deaths in the early 2000s, the viewer instead assumes the law led to a measurable decrease in gun deaths in the state.
Don’t fight against our shared visual language. Embrace it, mold it to your specific needs, and always keep your audience in mind.
It’s incredibly important to be fair to your data and to properly communicate it within the structures of our shared visual language.
This is what a more accurate representation of that same data set might look like:
Here’s another example, from Fox News. I’m sure many readers have come across this graph before:
Our eyes are hardwired to detect difference. In the natural world, this ability can help animals detect camouflaged threats to avoid being eaten. In our day-to-day lives, it allows us to make quick decisions for even the most mundane tasks: picking a route home from work, comparing prices when shopping online, selecting funds in your 401(k).
Whether intentional or accidental, the above graph from Fox News misappropriates our natural “difference detection.” By starting the X-axis at around 5,250,000 and not labeling it as such, the March 27 data appears to be just about 30% of the 7,066,000 goal. But in reality, 6,000,000 is 85% of the end goal. That’s a significant difference. At first glance, the viewer thinks, “There’s a long way to go,” instead of, “It’s almost there.”
Here’s a more accurate take on those figures:
It’s incredibly important to be fair to your data and to properly communicate it within the structures of our shared visual language.
Iconography
Iconography is only successful when it draws on a community’s shared understanding of specific images. These images draw from a collective visual vernacular in order to quickly express meaning and provide direction. A great (albeit increasingly archaic) example of this are the “male” and “female” pictograms used to identify restrooms:
Think about the last time you were out for a night on the town and went to use the restroom only to find something like this:
These signs might be playful and lighthearted (not to mention sexist) at first look, but to a distressed patron in need of relief, they are anything but. Overwrought design will at best confuse your audience, but at worst will actively turn them away. Universal iconography must be used to facilitate universal understanding, not provide an opportunity to be uniquely “you.”
Don’t fight against our shared visual language. Embrace it, mold it to your specific needs, and always keep your audience in mind. After all, you’re designing for them, not you.
For more insights on visual communication, check out the Killer Visual Strategies blog.
