Visual Communication

I looked back to a lesson we had on visual communication, in this we learnt what would aid us or prevent us from communicating succesfully.

We looked at Shannon & Weavers model of communication.

Shannon and Weaver argued that there where three levels of problems in  communication

• A The technical problem: how accurately can the message be transmitted?

This could be a printer not working, distractions, wrong size and commonly design noise – a more eye catching design which takes the eye away from yours, this could be a problem in a magazine if an article is sandwhiched between more eyecatching peices it may only be glanced at as the others would be taking the main bulk of attention.

Unless as a designer you where in charge of the whole magazine this could be difficult to combat, you can however make yours as eyecatching as possible.

• B The semantic problem: how precisely is the meaning ‘conveyed’?

This the designer has control of, if research is done properly and the piece is in the right place at the right time in front of the right audience, The rest is what the designer has created and how well the audience understands this.

• C The effectiveness problem: how effectively does the received meaning affect behaviour?

This is the outcome of the peice. eg does and advertisement increase sales of the product, if so then it has been visually communicated succesfully.

Before & during creating any peice I will refer back to the three points, I will begin by choosing my audience and making sure the peice is directed towards them.