COMM 1000.

020 2/19/20
*Ex = example

Exam 1 on Monday 2/24:

- Bring a pencil and your ID
- 25 multiple choice, answers A-E
- Review on Friday during discussion
- Make sure you make time to review the material!

Visual Communication
- An “enhancing your skills” lecture
- Taking complex information and presenting it visually
- Multimedia production​: commproduction.com

Visual communication​: delivery of ideas and information through visual forms

- Signs
- Graphic design
- Typography
- Illustration
- Advertising
- Color
- Photography
- Film/animation

Why study this?

- In general, people do not want to consume in-depth information anymore
- We have short attention spans because of media distracting us
- It’s a way to make people convinced/invested in what you have to tell them

Humans are visual

- Importance of processing information/sensory stimuli so we can navigate the world
successfully
- Visuals get people to focus on something

People learn through narrative

- People like stories!
- Think about how we learn: children’s books, nursery rhymes, etc.
- “Old wives tales”: they get people to pay attention
Visualization puts data into context
- “A Timeline of Earth’s Average Temperature” timeline
- This is a story that we are used to ignoring, but this timeline is different… it
captures our attention
- Allows us to make sense of complicated things in a shorter amount of time
- Ex: Graph of which diseases get the most donations, and which do not, and how
this data is connected to the actual number of deaths of each disease
- Many diseases where there are most deaths actually do not get the most
donations/fundraising
- Ex: Graph on return on investment for college: for the majority of majors,
students will make ​more​ money after college as a return on investment of going to
college

Some fundamentals:
1. Layout & design
2. Photography
3. Film & video

1. Layout & design principles: CRAP

- C​ontrast
- R​epetition
- A​lignment
- P​roximity

Proximity​: group related items together to visually establish relationships

- In society, we group together
- Ex: mother and son walking together
- Proximity creates visual unity!
- Ex: makes the flyer for a book club easier to read and understand

Alignment​: place items on the page ​intentionally.​ All items should connect to other items
- Why we put things where we put things
- Alignment allows for cohesiveness!

Repetition​: repeat some aspect of the design ​throughout ​the entire piece
- Used so everything fits together
- Used in flyers, jingles, etc.
- Repetition promotes consistency!
Contrast​: juxtapose various elements of the piece to draw a viewer’s eye into the page
- Used to highlight the things you want people to pay attention to; “catch” people’s eyes
- Contrast provides emphasis!

Slideshow best practices, a sample

- Less is more: forces you to pay attention to what is being ​said
- Lead your audience, don’t let your slides lead you
- Bring information bullets into slides one bit at a time
- Visualize and illustrate complex concepts
- Animate sparingly, but meaningfully
- Be a storyteller

What makes a good infographic?

2. Photography
Photography fundamentals: composition

*We viewed various photographs that utilized techniques such as foreground/background, blur,
and fade

Rule of thirds
- Apply a tic-tac-toe board over your photograph
- Things should be “happening” on the dotted lines in the photograph
- See slides posted online for examples of pictures divided into the tic-tac-toe pattern

Leading lines
- Elements of the photo that draw you in; make your eyes follow a path
- See slides posted online for examples of pictures with leading lines

Leading look
- The presence of headspace in front of where the person is looking, so the viewer can
imagine what/where they're looking toward
- See slides posted online for examples of pictures with leading looks

3. Film & video: some really basic tips

- Horizontal video, not vertical
- Pay attention to the sound
- Show with visual, don’t tell the audience what is going on
- Do what you can with what you have
- Above all else, tell the story!

*Study the science of art. Study the art of science.

*“Realize that everything connects to everything else.” - Leonardo da Vinci