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3. Communication
We live in a complex world. Everything is faster than ever before in history, which requires one to communicate faster and more precisely. The world we live in has at least three dimensions; it is abstract, ambiguous, dynamic and very expressive, while the media we use are flat, plain, emotionless, and neutral. The written word especially seems to be inadequately expressed because it is so still. When humans are faced with cognitive complexity, they often need graphics as well as text to better convey messages. How can we transmit complex ideas on a sheet of paper? How can we compress it on two dimensions and loose the least from the message?
We have reached the common consensus that the goal of graphic design is to communicate, and it is typography that forms an effective piece of communication. From the time when letterpress was invented, the major job for typographers, letterers, printers, and engravers was to design a book with predominance of text. This is understandable because a book was not something as common as today. We have developed a classical approach toward designing books. The role of a designer was to clearly illustrate text, and to be neutral to the message. The reason for being neutral was very often because of technical limitation. Later on, with the developments of new printing techniques, from the highly skilled interpreter and visualizator evolved a typographer who understands that visual expressions are not inferior to verbal ones.
Images are just as important as language in processing meaning. The idea is not to illustrate but to communicate. Certainly type has a greater potential than to just convey text; it has the potential to express also a meaning of a text. The concept of communication changed also with adding some knowledge, and we appeared to be in the age of "visual communication".
Visual communication seems to be some combination of text and images covered under one language. To express the values of the age we live in, we have integrated the verbal and visual meanings of a word as one coherent language. With this visual language we can convey more meaning in a more compact unit of expression. "At the root of it, design is a language just as French and German are languages. Whilst some people are able to understand design fluently, there are those who just use phrase-books. They don't understand the words they're using, but the phrase meet their need. Up to a point, you have to use a common language, and to meet people at least halfway" 1.
Visual language does not have the language barriers that other languages have. Many graphic designers admire work of Russian Constructivists. The works of El Lissitsky and Aleksandr Rodchenko are still highly influential. Typographers now are trying to re-interpret their visual elements that were so successfully speaking to the masses. I wonder how many of these designers so strongly influenced by them speak Russian?
In the process of communication people have developed visual phrases that simplify many problems, and humans are able to interpret those non-verbal symbols through learning associations from early childhood. There are images and pictorial symbols that people associate with certain logical interpretation, and graphic artists have learned how to use their inherent qualities. Those phrases are widely used in fine arts as well as in graphic design. To decode a symbol, one must know the code. The same thing may have different meaning to people from different backgrounds. Therefore, to form an effective piece of communication assume to have sufficient knowledge of the working enviroment. Using this knowledge guarantee better impact (better communication).
According to the communicative model process of Shannon and Weaver from 1949 (the first classical communication model based on Western traditions), an information source encodes a message, which is transmitted to receiver (Fig 1). The receiver decodes the message and has a chance to react to it. The assumptions in this model are that the channel is free of interference, the sender expresses clearly his message and the receiver decodes it with intended interpretation.
According to this diagram, classic typography is used to work with the first two modes, while typography today takes a role of the noise channel as well. This noise does not mean to eliminate the receiver from decoding the messages; graphic designers just use the noise as a challenge for the readers, instead of spoon-feeding them. In communication, noise is anything that interferes with comprehension by its intended recipient.
Even when we understand the importance of the written word (highly abstract ideas are sometimes too complicated to be expressed visually) to receive an idea, it must be first perceived through our senses. Humans perceive the most of the world through our eyes. This gives a reason to visualize thoughts, to visualize in order to better understand. We react and accept information more rapidly than before. Often, we are being overwhelmed by new information. When one thinks about a new object never seen before, he thinks in terms of pictures, rather than words. A piece of information or a word has a meaning for us only when we have experienced it before. To acquire the meaning, we unconsciously visualize, and visual arts are of great help.
Graphic design becomes more specific as it encounters more specific problems. No more may we use a fixed approach to certain problems but we must carefully select the best tools to solve them. There are more and more options for solving any single problem. Graphic designers are building their own vocabularies that help them communicate more personally. A personal expression is no longer a pejorative term for a designer who does not follow the commonly accepted rules. Originality, freshness, and experiments are values appreciated now, and artwork employing these values create a portrait of our time. Communication seems to be in a different level; we use dialog instead of one-way statements. Using interactive methods, the designer is better able to control the process of communicating. He can see the impact of his action and use more effective tools with every step. The communication also gets a more human face, since more people are involved in this process and "audience" plays a participative role as well.
Many people are aware of the great visual power of images. Images offer to be manipulated; this was a function of pictures ever since. To manipulate us to be happy, to make us buy a product, to make us hate people (ideologically political posters). Graphic design has been democratized. The typographic industry is not controlled by a couple of giant foundries anymore. Anyone can buy special graphic software, and technically has the same powerful tools as the top graphic designers.
"Visual literacy" is another quite new term. Under this term we understand how literate are the viewers. Designer now can rely upon the reader's ability to decipher abstract images. We are unconsciously doing the same thing when we read-unconsciously interpreting abstract symbols-letters. Some design schemes assume a higher level of visual literacy. For instance, in the Netherlands, the standard of graphic design is exceptionally high, and people accept and encourage new design solutions and experiments. Graphic design is at large professionalized, and even clients understand the language of graphics. Holland is a museum of graphic design.
The MTV and video games generation undoubtedly has an improved capacity to read pictures quickly. Thanks to fast sequences in video clips our sensory senses can react faster and more accurately on some images. People have enhanced their capability to identify elements in framatic show and have developed an ability to extract the most important information from it. People are very flexible creatures; they are involved with an overwhelming quantity of information. However, we do not read pictures as carefully as we read text, still biased that the text has more meaning than a picture. In the Western world, images, same as text, tend to be read from left to right, from top to bottom, unless the composer of the picture has used some possible eye-stop devices. The element of the unexpected has a great role; it entirely creates the impact of the picture. A strong surprise is, of course, more effective than a mild strike. It is impossible not to notice the unexpected. As occasion demands, we choose from the palette of tools to attract one's attention. We do not want to move within the bounds of the expected. This should be a new rule in graphic design.
This is what we call creativity, going farther than one would usually dare to go. To be creative, we have to exceed the realm of our working space; we must push the boundaries that are very flexible. Beyond the borders of our usual motion we can meet with things we have never seen before. This might be scary for many people because we can only control these new things with great difficulties. However, exceeding the limits is very relative; the same edge or border is adaptable; it varies with each observer. The same thing may be boring to one group of people and the others, perhaps, may find it surprising.