#moonmoonmoonmoon

Key Concepts and Key Words:

#Communication #Visual communication #Visual language #Visual message #Technology for editorial design  #Methods to create a difference in the meaning through visual design #Tipography 

Key Questions:

What is visual communication? What is visual language? What is the best way to create a visual message? How do we turn ideas or concepts into a visual message?What tools and methods do we use? What is the role of technology? What does it mean to design? How does visual narration differ from verbal narration?

Focus of the class:

Visual Communication means ideas developed by humanbeings for other humanbeings through visual aids.

Highlights of the class:

Inspirations:

Functioning efficiently, looking beautiful and non-ordinary (not necessarily extraordinary), understandable, making you feel good about it (makes you feel good even when you look at it, amazes you, startles you, makes you wonder, makes you think, puts you at ease for a second or longer) and preferably easily accessible / affordable. That is my definition of a good design. They say design is not about what it is, it is about what it does. Yes, it is about what it does but that is all about what it is. If this does not sound good to you it is just because as the designer of this text I didn’t do a good job and I didn’t create a text which serves for its function. If this is the case, I owe you my sincere apologies but I am still learnin. 

This week, I learnt a bit about how texts and images can cooperate or sometimes replace each other or overlap each other to create a meaning. A message, a mystery needs to be solved in the eye of the viewer. 

I haven’t thought that I would be this much delighted by looking at an ordinarily created (just adressing visual learners) presentation, for about two hours. It was not about the presentation or presentor. It was the content itself which was presented making me enchanted: Visual Communication.

I have always known that I am a very visual person; but I like to see the intelligence merging with visuality. Otherwise it would be just about decoration or esthetics. I like the smart beauty or beautiful smartness. That is exactly what the presentor was showing me. 

Look at this Ozone poster (on the top of the post), prepared in 1996 for the Ozone Preservation Day (?).OZONO, is ozone in Spanish. The Venezuelan Artist is playing with the very nature of the letters, the size of the letters creating some kind of depthness, using an image as a letter to enrich the context, and contrasting background and the letters to create the sense of hanging in the air to relate it to the meaning of the word. So many functions created with just 5 letters and a little bit of play with the size. Smartly thought, beautifully created, and perfectly doing its job. I can’t believe that I am only talking about a poster:) But we should be apreciating this kind of works so that people get inspired for better. We keep seeing the word and image salads everywhere. Eye-tiring, not centralizing on the message, failing to serve its function but yet decorating everywhere. The bad examples are not dificult to detect. In our house, on the book covers, on the packages, on our bed sheets, clothes, food, furnitures, in the streets, on the cars, in the metro, on the billboards, on the shopwindows... We are exposed to them everyday.  

But then,we spot a smartandbeautifulvisual communicating its aim purely and we feel we have to take another look. The visuals making you look at them twice or just a bit longer than normal are worth your apreciation, praise and applause. Find the artist, check the publisher. In a world full of average designers, it is still difficult to find a great visual design. 

So I should be thanking Ximena who came and showed me some beautiful examples of good visual iages and projects. 

Examples from the class:

1) Moon Project

Moon Project was created by Ai Wei Wei and Olafur Eliasson in 2013. You can go and check it in www.moonmoonmoonmoon.com. It is a creating itself canvas accessible to anybody around the world. It is hard to describe yet so easy to understand. These two humanbeings gave the world an empty canvas in the shape of a moon in 2013 and the people keep sketching and leaving their marks on it; hence, contributing to the world’s second biggest collective artwork. (The first one is the earth itself).

Foto taken from : MoonMoonMoonMoon.com

"Turn nothing into something—make a drawing, make a mark. Connect with others through this space of imagination. Look at other people's drawings and share them with the world. Be part of the growing community to celebrate how creative expression transcends external borders and internal constraints. We are in this world together. Ideas, wind, and air no one can stop." 

Foto taken from: MoonMoonMoonMoon.com

2) Books with Different Bodies

There were some other examples of great visual communications illustrating the power of the visual elements on creating the message on the audience’s mind through sensorial awakenings. And this can be done employing different things. Anything can be your tool. A great example to this would be Irma Boom, who uses the body of the books to give her messages, creating textures, playing with the size, adding shocking colours...

And here is a great talented Chilean Artist doing a similar work yet in her own beautiful way, Maria San Martin. Her award winning work: In Their Memory: Human Rights violation in Chile  (1973-1990)

Fotos of Maria San Hartin s Work were taken from Sandy Gallery.