Visual communication
[2] Visual communication has been proven to be unique when compared to other verbal or written languages because of its more abstract structure.
[4] Within modern culture, there are several types of characteristics when it comes to visual elements, they consist of objects, models, graphs, diagrams, maps, and photographs.
[5] Outside the different types of characteristics and elements, there are seven components of visual communication: color, shape, tones, texture, figure-ground, balance, and hierarchy.
Visual communication holds a specific purpose in aspects such as social media, culture, politics, economics, and science.
[6] Whether it is advertisements, teaching and learning, or speeches and presentations, they all involve visual aids that communicate a message.
In reference to the visual aids, the following are the most common: chalkboard or whiteboard, poster board, handouts, video excerpts, projection equipment, and computer-assisted presentations.
[9] Visual communication by e-mail, a textual medium, is commonly expressed with ASCII art, emoticons, and embedded digital images.
[11] Aldous Huxley is regarded as one of the most prominent explorers of visual communication and sight-related theories.
[12] Becoming near-blind in his teen years as the result of an illness influenced his approach, and his work includes important novels on the dehumanizing aspects of scientific progress, most famously Brave New World and The Art of Seeing.
Additional laws include closure and figure-ground principles in studied images is also intensively taught.
[13] Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler are also prominent figures in early visual communication research.
In order to achieve hierarchy, we must take into account the other components: Color, Shape, Tones, Texture, Figure-Ground, Balance.
In addition to creating a strong contrast in color, texture, and tone, figure-ground can highlight different figures.
Symmetrical balance holds a stable composition and is proper in conveying informative visual communication.
The function of sight itself has mechanisms that must work together in order to transform the lines, shapes, and colors around a person's environment into a cohesive picture that can then hold meaning.
[19] These mechanisms are what occur in the human body that allow a person's eye to make sense of what the viewer sees and then the signals that are sent to relay information to their brain to be processed.
[20] The effect visual literacy has on a viewer has also been shown to influence aspects of their life such as, attitudes, values, beliefs, as well as cultural views.
[21] Scholars have noted how society and culture is often dominated by imagery, especially with the rise of mass technological media.
The contributors who are commonly referred to are; Charles Sanders Peirce and his descendants and Ferdinand de Saussure.
[23] Saussure, however, focused primarily on the structure and value of a sign and its relation to other symbols within the language system.
The school of thought that Saussure curated contributed to the rise of structuralism as well as later theories developed by various scholars in the field of communication.
The incorporation of text and images deliver messages quicker and more simplistic through social media platforms.
Cultures that are generally more high-context will rely heavily on visual elements that have an implied and implicit meaning.
Whereas religion may see a sunset as a divine message, secular observers will attach to it an unintentional meaning of nostalgia.
From Bohr's atomic model to NASA's photographs of Earth, these visual elements have served as tools in furthering the understand of science and medicine.
This design focuses on strictly the user and how they can interact with the visual element with minimum stress, but maximum level of efficiency.
