VC Theory Part
Visual Communication Basics
A definition of Communication: Wikipedia
Communication is the process of attempting to convey information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium. Communication requires that all parties have an area of communicative commonality. There are auditory means, such as speaking, singing and sometimes tone of voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact, or the use of writing.
The definition of Visual Communication
The definition of Visual Communication according to Wikipedia: Visual Communication is the conveyance of ideas and information in forms that can be read or looked upon. Primarily associated with two dimensional images, it includes: art, signs, photography, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, color and electronic resources. Recent research in the field has focused on web design and graphic oriented usability. Graphic designers use methods of visual communication in their professional practice. It explores the idea that a visual message with text has a greater power to inform, educate or persuade a person.
Visual communication on the World Wide Web is perhaps the most important form of communication taking place when users are surfing the Internet. When experiencing the web, one uses the eyes as the primary sense and therefore the visual display of a website is important for the users understanding of the communication taking place.
The definition of Visual Communication according to Wikipedia: Visual Communication is the conveyance of ideas and information in forms that can be read or looked upon. Primarily associated with two dimensional images, it includes: art, signs, photography, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, color and electronic resources. Recent research in the field has focused on web design and graphic oriented usability. Graphic designers use methods of visual communication in their professional practice. It explores the idea that a visual message with text has a greater power to inform, educate or persuade a person.
Visual communication on the World Wide Web is perhaps the most important form of communication taking place when users are surfing the Internet. When experiencing the web, one uses the eyes as the primary sense and therefore the visual display of a website is important for the users understanding of the communication taking place.
History of Visual Communication
Rocks and caves
Cave paintings date from 40 000 years ago, they are to be considered as the first visuals ever to be made by men in the prehistoric times. The paintings were painted on the cave of rock walls, it is considered to be the work of respected elders or shamen during that period of time. The common themes of those paintings were large animals, people were relatively rare to be seen on such paintings. A current interpretation is that they were painted by shamen who retreated into the caves in a ‘trance like’ state and that the shamen derived some sort of strength from the cave itself
Petroglyphs (also called rock engravings) are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. They were an important form of pre-writing symbols, used in communication from approximately 10,000 B.C. to modern times, depending on culture and location.
Ideograms
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphical symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic languages. Examples of ideograms include wayfinding signage, such as in airports and other environments where many people may not be familiar with the language of the place they are in, as well as Arabic numerals and mathematical notation, which are used worldwide regardless of how they are pronounced in different languages. The term "ideogram" is commonly used to describe logographic writing systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese characters. However, symbols in logographic systems generally represent words or morphemes rather than pure ideas.
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphical symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic languages. Examples of ideograms include wayfinding signage, such as in airports and other environments where many people may not be familiar with the language of the place they are in, as well as Arabic numerals and mathematical notation, which are used worldwide regardless of how they are pronounced in different languages. The term "ideogram" is commonly used to describe logographic writing systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese characters. However, symbols in logographic systems generally represent words or morphemes rather than pure ideas.
The alphabet The history of the alphabet is believed to have begun in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. The first consonantal alphabet found has emerg ed around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets), and was at least influenced by the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieratic script. Nearly all alphabets in the world today either descend directly from this development or were inspired by its design.
The most widely used alphabet is the Latin alphabet. It derives from the Greek, the first true alphabet in that it consistently assigns letters to both consonants and vowels.
The art of the book
It commenced via ‘illuminated manuscripts’. A n illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration or illustration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniatures. In the strictest definition of the term, an illuminated manuscript only refers to manuscripts decorated with gold or silver. However, in both common usage and modern scholarship, the term is now used to refer to any decorated manuscript.
Predominantly the manuscripts were consisted with religious content. It was quite an intensive effort to make these manuscripts, because it was expensive and it took quite some time before it was finished.
The printing pressIncunabula is a book, single sheet, or image that was printed, not handwritten, before the year 1501 in Europe.
Johannes Gutenberg (1398 – 1468) was a German goldsmith and inventor who achieved fame for his invention of the technology of printing with movable types during 1447. Gutenberg has often been credited as being the most influential and important person of all times, with his invention occupying similar status.
The masters of Type The Renaissance marked the transition from medieval to modern times. It came out of the growth of interest in ‘humanism’. This interest in humanism led to re evaluation/ examination of ancient texts. There was a sudden increase in literacy, a growth in interest in agriculture, politics, social relations, architecture, music and medicine. People became more civilized like how humans are living their lives nowadays. With all these new interests also came the development of calligraphy.
In contrast to the old manuscripts and in combination with the techniques of the printing press, texts now had more legible fonts, they were more secular, and more white space. And they were also more adapted to printing presses.
Breaking the Grid
The Industrial Revolution beginning in the United Kingdom (late 18th early 19th Century), it marked the transition from economy based upon manual labor to one based upon machinery.
Henry Ford, father of the assembly line, stated, "There is but one rule for the industrialist, and that is: Make the highest quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.“
The mass productive milieu of the industrial revolution manifested itself in a unique invention called lithography and this technique was to set type free from the bondage of the compositor. It also introduced the development of photography .(Daguerreotype)
The Industrial Revolution beginning in the United Kingdom (late 18th early 19th Century), it marked the transition from economy based upon manual labor to one based upon machinery.
Henry Ford, father of the assembly line, stated, "There is but one rule for the industrialist, and that is: Make the highest quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.“
The mass productive milieu of the industrial revolution manifested itself in a unique invention called lithography and this technique was to set type free from the bondage of the compositor. It also introduced the development of photography .(Daguerreotype)
The avant garde
The origin of the application of this French term to art can be fixed at May 17, 1863, the opening of the Salon des Refusés in Paris, organised by painters whose work was rejected for the annual Paris Salon of officially sanctioned academic art. Salons des Refusés were held in 1874, 1875, and 1886.
Thus originally meant leading, pioneering - over time, avant-garde became associated with movements concerned with art for art's sake, focusing primarily on expanding the frontiers of aesthetic experience, rather than with wider social reform.
Thus originally meant leading, pioneering - over time, avant-garde became associated with movements concerned with art for art's sake, focusing primarily on expanding the frontiers of aesthetic experience, rather than with wider social reform.
The modernists
Modernism is a trend of thought which affirms the power of human beings to make, improve and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation. The term covers a variety of political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Broadly, modernism describes a series of progressive cultural movements in art and architecture, music, literature and the applied arts which emerged in the decades before 1914.
The Computer Post modernity
Postmodernity is a term used to describe the social and cultural implications of postmodernism. The term is used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century life. These features include globalization, consumerism, the fragmentation of authority, and the commoditization of k nowledge (see "Modernity"). "Post-modernity" is also used to demark a period in art, design and architecture beginning in the 1950's in response to the International Style, or an artistic period characterized by the abandonment of strong divisions of genre, "high" and "low" art, and the emergence of the global village.
Modernism is a trend of thought which affirms the power of human beings to make, improve and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation. The term covers a variety of political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Broadly, modernism describes a series of progressive cultural movements in art and architecture, music, literature and the applied arts which emerged in the decades before 1914.
The Computer Post modernity
Postmodernity is a term used to describe the social and cultural implications of postmodernism. The term is used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century life. These features include globalization, consumerism, the fragmentation of authority, and the commoditization of k nowledge (see "Modernity"). "Post-modernity" is also used to demark a period in art, design and architecture beginning in the 1950's in response to the International Style, or an artistic period characterized by the abandonment of strong divisions of genre, "high" and "low" art, and the emergence of the global village.
Visual Literacy & Intelligence
& Communication
First of all what is literacy? It is the ability to read and write.
Verbal Literacy
Gunther Kress defines literacy as ‘the term to use when we make (read & write) messages using letters as the means of recording that message’.
According to Wikipedia visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading.
The term “visual literacy” (VL) is credited to Zach Flo, who in 1969 offered a tentative definition of the concept: “Visual literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences.”1 However, because multiple disciplines such as education, art history and criticism, rhetoric, semiotics, philosophy, information design, and graphic design make use of the term visual literacy, arriving at a common definition of visual literacy has been contested since its first appearance in professional publications.
Since technological advances continue to develop at an unprecedented rate, many educators in the twenty-first century promote the learning of visual literacies as indispensable to life in the information age. Similar to linguistic literacy (meaning making derived from written or oral human language) which is commonly taught in schools, educators are recognizing the importance of helping students develop visual literacies in order to survive and communicate in a highly complex world.
So... Visual Literacy is...
Visual literacy is ‘the term to use when we make (read & write)messages using visuals as the means of recording that message’....?
How to define literacy?
There is a three-fold distinction in the naming/defining practice:
Visual literacy is ‘the term to use when we make (read & write)messages using visuals as the means of recording that message’....?
How to define literacy?
There is a three-fold distinction in the naming/defining practice:
we should name the resources for representing (words, visuals, and gestures etc.); - FORM?
the use of the resources in the production of the message (knowledge, skills and competence), and; - USE?
the use of the resources in the production of the message (knowledge, skills and competence), and; - USE?
the involvement of the resources for the dissemination of meanings as message (semiotic functions). – MEANING?
Literacy & Communication
However, this distinction of the ‘ naming practice’ cannot be applied to the new technologies of information and communication, for instance, the computer brings all three together and uses different modes of resources at the same time for producing messages (combining words and visualisations). It is therefore more important than ever that we understand which resources are best used for a certain effect so that we choose the correct resource and apply the specific skills and knowledge to produce a correct ‘coding’ of the intended meaning of the message.
Literacy & Communication
However, this distinction of the ‘ naming practice’ cannot be applied to the new technologies of information and communication, for instance, the computer brings all three together and uses different modes of resources at the same time for producing messages (combining words and visualisations). It is therefore more important than ever that we understand which resources are best used for a certain effect so that we choose the correct resource and apply the specific skills and knowledge to produce a correct ‘coding’ of the intended meaning of the message.
Multiple Intelligences
Gardner first laid out the theory of multiple intelligences (MI) in his book Frames of Mind. Gardner's claim is that pencil and paper IQ tests do not capture the full range of human intelligences, and that we all have individual profiles of strengths and weaknesses across multiple intelligence dimensions. Gardner defines intelligence as the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural settings. MI initially consisted of seven dimensions of intelligence (Visual/Spatial Intelligence, Musical Intelligence, Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence, Logical/Mathematical Intelligence, Interpersonal Intelligence, Intrapersonal Intelligence, and Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence). Since the publication of Frames of Mind, Gardner has additionally identified an 8th dimension of intelligence: Naturalist Intelligence, and is still considering a possible ninth: Existentialist Intelligence.
