The Anatomy of a Visual Message

Representational

In this image we can appreciate a representational visual message. Representational is what we see and recognize from the environment and experience. Depicts objects from reality. We see a person and a dog laying down sleeping. The woman and the dog carry a large amount of detail and is directly reporting their actions. We get a lot and of information from this image. The viewer gets a clear idea of what this picture is about, and spends time looking at the detail to make a conclusion. Little ambiguity as to what is trying to communicate.

Abstraction

Abstract, the process of distillation and the reduction of multiple visual factor to ONLY THE ESSENTIALS and most typical of what is being represented. In others words a simplified reality. In this image we can admire abstraction everywhere. We now what a kid/person looks like thus we immediately conclude this picture to be depicting abstract kids. We conclude that by looking at the detail. There isn't much, no detail on the face but just the essentials; mouth, nose and a dot as a eye. We are not flat/2D objects we see in 3D. Abstraction is often use as a direct communication tool. It allows the viewers to get the general message faster without having to look carefully at every detail. 

 

 Symbolism

A Symbol, an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark, denotes (refers to) something else by association, resemblance, or convention. Symbolic communication is express via coded form such as numbers, music, letters, the alphabet of any language. It can refer to a thing, an action, a group, idea, business, institution, political party, religion, etc. Symbols are abstracted, simplified, and standardized, making abstract thinking and communication more efficient, the more abstract, the more effective. Symbols depend on links to memory, experience, concepts and are often drawn from nature, sometimes from artificial constructs or other symbols. In this image we can appreciate a symbol that there is an electric escalator somewhere. Since this kind of symbols are link to memory, only those who live or have live in a city will recognize such symbol.

Visual Techniques

Regularity, Symmetry, Intricacy, Depth, and Episodicity.

Colorfulness, repetition, juxtaposition, depth, variation, unity, and balance.

Composition is the interpretive means for controlling the reinterpretation of a visual message by those who experience it. Both examples use similar visual techniques but in different ways. In the first image we can see regularity favoring the uniformity of the elements, clippers, tape, black and white photos. Symmetry, the axis balance, mirror image of book pages. Intricacy, heavily old style page look, vellum look. Depth, background image, the effect of light and shade to imitate dimension. In the second image we appreciate colorfulness and a garden feel throughout the composition. through the repetition of flowers and the grass we get that feel. Juxtaposing the camera and the flowers side by side for a better interpretation/intention of the design. Depth thought the clouds and rainbow on the back to release it from its flatness. Variation of different kinds flowers and colors. Unity of variety to perceive it as a whole, rather than the sum of its parts and a well balanced composition. Through the usage of all these different techniques we can admired a well defined message in web design.

Contrast

Contrast is the most fundamental and the most critical technique in visual design and communication. As a concept it embodies the essence of polarities we use to construct meaning, such as Light without Dark, Good without Bad, Big without Small etc. Confusion and ambiguity in contrast are generally not effective in design or communication. We define meaning.

In this example FRONTLINE Flea & Tick Spray has make a remarkable Ad. Using a gigantic picture of a dog scratching, putting on the ground and representing people passing by as the fleas makes this Ad a success. The use of contrast in scale was use successfully. Scale requires comparison, in this case between the gigantic dog and the tiny people walking by, we are able to understand the meaning without having to read what's advertising, it just make sense.

In this other Ad contrast was intended using color yet it didn't succeed. Context influences our perception of color, yes this Ad is using color to draw our attention to that specific area and it succeed, but the BIG question is, what exactly is emphasizing? For what reason was this area selected? Every time you look at it, there's nothing of importance there. There's just the beginning of the message but nothing else. Is it telling us that we should begin to read from there, top to bottom, left to right? We already know that. That area is so stress by the color and its position that is impossible to look at something else, even its content. Confusion and ambiguity in contrast are generally not effective in design or communication, thus making this Ad a failure. I found this example while ridding BART. Amazing how this kind of Ads are actually out there.

Implied Motion in Design

This graphic image contains the element of implied motion. The guy is about to be launched as soon as the bottle releases the cork. This is implied motion of expectation because we expect to see the guy riding the cork to be launched, we even unconsciously start counting down. It is also a good example of scale exaggeration and thus the designer has successfully created an image that contains energy of movement.

In this other image implied motion plays an important role. This Ad for Legos shows a toy by the sidewalk of a city trying to get a taxi and it blurs the background to create a busy street scene and to emphasize the Lego toy. The Ad uses Familiar size cue to emphasizes that its a toy not an scale exaggeration of a human dress in Lego costume. Also the ad uses strong diagonal lines and perspective, creating an converging point, to imply motion down the street to show that the toy will never get a taxi in this busy city.

Dimension/Depth/Space

Office Products now at FedEx Kinkos

Its hard not to look at this Ad again and again, but why is that? What makes this Ad stand out more that any other around us. We are used, at least those who live or have lived in the city, to see hundreds if not thousands of different Advertisements around us trying to sell or better yet stand out more than others. In this image FedEx has gone beyond paper and ink, playing with our perception by using scale. Typically, our minds use a combination of perceptual cues to interpret visual information. Overlap, Relative Size, Atmospheric, Linear Perspective, Texture Gradient etc. We are familiar with the size of a highlighter, the depth+size cue "Familiar size" telling us that the highlighter should be further away from the person walking by, but other information conflicts, making no logical sense and therefore making it more interesting and confusing. Conflicting cues cause excitement and/or confusion.

Tone & Color

Tone, dependent on context, is a basic yet important visual element for communication. In this image we can admire tone everywhere. Continues tones in both the bride and groom to emphasize their faces and to create a happy couple mood. Thought there is not much detail in the highlight or the shadows of the dress and suit, we can see contrasting detail in the mid-tones. Tone interacts most of the time with the idea of dimension. In this image there's a clear sense of deeper space. The foreground is out of focus while the background clear and with detail. By overlapping them we get the idea that the couple is far and the image out of focus really close.

Color, highly dependent upon context and contrast with other colors, plays an important role in communicating concepts and for our survival. In this two images we can see the same image but the concept changes when the color is removed. In the first picture, the green becomes the focal point and its meaning follows. The green color in traffic lights is associated with the command; proceed, go, etc while the red, stop. Then the attention goes to the bright background and then we see the two individuals standing there. It created visual hierarchy. The meaning of the message is up to the viewer to interpret. In the second image everything becomes one. No color only tone. It has meaning but no real emphasis anywhere. Color and tone are considered to work together, they interact with each other and show hierarchical relationship in both perception and design. In the first image the combination of both show mood, and a more concise message. Without tone, pure Hue has no strong meaning in this image.

Product Design

Shape

What a better way to recycle the materials instead of throwing them away. Shape, derived from the dot and line, plays an important role in design. We can appreciate how several similar curvilinear shapes interact with each other to create a whole new one, a unique chair. Using the circle, the basic life structure that everyone is familiar with, as the dominant shape helps to create a safe, peaceful, relaxing, protecting atmosphere. So,  if you want to turn your bike into a rocking chair, you know what to do.

 

Line

Though at a simple glance it might look like a normal, and modern shelf unit that could be sold at an any furniture store, there’s more a whole lot more. Line, derived from the dot and the most important visual element, shows structure and balance in this simple yet interesting and playful shelf. Line is every where, from straight, rectilinear to curvilinear edges.  

Texture

It might look as a regular boring block yet its appearance states the opposite. Texture, whether visual or tactile, frequently serves as a stand-in for the qualities of our touching sense. We are extremely curious beings but sometimes we are held against, limited by the many "Do not touch" signs that do nothing more than enticing it viewers to actually touch it. Most of out textural experience is optical, we only see, not tactile, touch, feel. In this simple block, texture, achieved through patter, was added to relieve the block from its flatness in order to create a more interesting piece.

Design Success and Failure in Relation to Syntactical Guidelines

In this example we can admire beautiful structural relationships in the visual message. Though there are minimum elements present, the message is clear and well define. The balance is well distributed throughout  the composition making it easy to read and understand the concept without spending to much time. Every element is well arranged, harmony can be found, great leveling.

This example speaks for itself. Terrible color balance. Stress is everywhere. Unable to find any pattern. No relation between positive or negative, both want to act at the same time. There isn't a single fixed point where to stop. Structure was used but not achieved. No visual hierarchy. Background image is too distracting, no headline or title or i wasn't able to find it, different colors every where which adds to user confusion, and embossing effect on Ads. In simple words its a terrible design with no plan or structure, impossible to even read.

Visual Vs Symbolic Language

In this image; woman, man, all ethnic backgrounds, a hat, chairs line up, lights, people waiting, looking around, a pair of glasses, warm clothing, waiting patiently, hands together, praying, they all have been waiting for long, waiting for their turn, rows and columns of people sitting right next to each other,  talking, a room full of people.
People have to endure extreme hardship when it comes to unemployment. Many have waited and waited for their turn, for their chance, for a job that will support them, that will at least provide them with a meal. In the photo we see that many people of all ethnic backgrounds have gather in a room of many rows and columns of chairs waiting patiently for their turn. Some look like they have waited for a long time. Since morning possibly, and constantly looking around, talking to their neighbor. In the area out of focus we can also see how one of them have her/his hands cross in hope of getting something, of getting somewhere. The main character in photo, though it looks like the man is asleep because of his head is down leaning against his hands, he portrays an image of someone that has persevere the long waiting, praying the today will be the day he will get something. Most of us have already experience the long waiting at the DMV office, just to get some document that it takes a few minutes to process, imagine how it feels to wait hours, days, weeks even months to get a job.

Visual Thinking Research

Me

My Brother's

I challenged my brother to do the puzzles with me but with a time limit. I wanted to employ the "perceptual speed" test. We are constantly challenging each other all the time so this was a pretty fun activity. We started with "The Cat" puzzle to start off easy or so I thought. It didn't took me long to solve the puzzle yet my bother was struggling still. I'm way faster than him because every time he played a video game such as "Resident Evil" where puzzle solving, dealing with riddles, and finding clues to complete a mission was necessary, i was the one who solve them all, so i got used to it. My patter-seeking perception was/is always active, constantly filling in missing pieces of information, finding ways to fill those missing pieces in, matching objects, categorizing and so on to solve the game.Everyone is constantly doing it too, they're just not aware of it. Though i finish mine first with an 18 as an answer and my bother kept getting 16 somehow every time, my answer was wrong. I kept the answer on my image and my brothers' too. On my brother's image you can see that the number was originally 16 till after he realize he wasn't counting the inside of the eyes that he change it to 18. It was until i looked at the answer that i found out the correct answer was 20. So i went back and looked at the puzzle again compering my answer with the answer sheet to see where i had miss some information. It was on the tail. I initially counted 5 triangles but there are 7. 

Me

My Brother's

The challenge was not over yet. Our next challenge was "The Quarrelsome Neighbors", quite an interesting puzzle. So we did the same thing, we set a time limit to see who was better.  So i begin with what i usually do; i categorize and match the information provided. Then i find more details to fill out the missing pieces. This puzzle was more challenging and it took me more time to figure it out . At the end it was me again who won. My brother in other hand just got frustrated so he decided to looked at my answer when i went to get a glass of water. Thought the answer wasn't exactly the same as in the answer sheet it still worked. There was more than one answer.

Feature Hierarchy & Visual Search

2010 Taipei International Floral Exposition Logo

At a simple glance of the image, we are capable of grasping the intended meaning in seconds, though not completely. Through our visual search - feature channel hierarchies - we get a general overview about the intended meaning. The difference in color represents variety, the human shape like represents people, the number of people, a community and their placement, unity, therefore the unity of a diverse community. "The logo represent human celebrations and shared values". The result could differ if any of this elements were to be change. For example, just by changing the color to just black and white, the interpretation might differ because color was excluded from our feature channels. Our attention is bias and if any feature channel is not present at that moment then its excluded. As a visual communication major my feature channels are always active. My area of professional interest its just like the logo, it varies. But by unifying the variety I'm capable of creative successful designs.

Top-Down Visual Processing

McDonald’s Large Coffee: Outdoor puzzle

This outdoor poster was turned into a large interactive push puzzles that consumers could solve in order to “sort your head”. This was done to promote McDonald’s Large Coffee for only 1 Euro. Just as the advertisement has successfully accomplish the action, dragging consumers attention and cognitive goal getting the consumer to understand the idea through visuals, Visual Communication, my existing area of study, has the same goals. The Ad's goal is to entice consumers to approach, solve the puzzle and see the final results. We are strongly bias beings when we are attempting to accomplish something. In the Ad, to solve the puzzle, we have to look at each piece individually, prioritizing each of them and moving along accordingly. Putting the features such as the eyes, lips, nose etc. of the woman according to what we know is the appropriate place. Doing massive eye movement - active vision -  even though we are not always aware of it, to accomplish our task. Beginning with short “fixations” to get overview, then longer fixations in concert with goals and current tasks, look-aheads to enable future actions. Reconstructing the McDonald's logo, looking at each color and how they are related to each other while constantly re-link between action goal, dragging the right piece and cognitive goal, making sense. Visual communication does not differ. We get the overview of what visual communication is about. We begin an action goal, such as where we need to go and when we need to do it. Along with a cognitive goal, what we need to do, how do we do it, and why are we doing it. We also do our short “fixations” to get the overview of the class, then our longer fixations to keep us focus, and our look-aheads to what's next while constantly re-linking between actions and cognition so we accomplish our goal and graduate in time.