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The Future Of Visual Communication Design Is Almost Invisible Or Why Skills In Visual Aesthetics Are Important To Service Design, Mark Roxburgh, Jemimah Irvin

ServDes Conference Series

Over the past 20 years there has been an increase in post-secondary visual communication education in Australia while the growth of the industry itself has been low, meaning an increasing number of graduates compete for a limited pool of jobs . The use of visualisation in human centered and service design approaches provides alternative employment opportunities for these graduates. This paper presents a case study of a visual communication honors research project that is indicative of those opportunities and the potential benefits of having highly skilled visual practitioners involved in human centered and service design processes. Furthermore, we argue that …

Tiny Diasporas, Angela Lorenzo

Masters Theses

I see myself as a literary curator — I collect and sequence texts and images, both digital and analog, to reveal, connect, and construct narratives, resulting in shifting meanings and significances. Inhabiting this curatorial ethos, I investigate hidden subtexts, locating personal and collective relations to the margins and files marked “miscellany.” Working in books and installations, I engage with the inherited meanings of visual languages (form, typography, color, material, format) to open up well-worn narratives and craft new interpretations.

Tiny Diasporas is a primer to a design practice that borrows the form of an abecedarius, an alphabetical wordlist for learning …

This Is Public Work, Nick Adam

Masters Theses

This thesis positions graphic design as an integral form of public works.

T his is public work regards the causal relationship between graphic design and its publics as an opportunity to explore the formal maneuvers to enhance an artifact's visual codes. The idea is an experiential one: rich and meaningful form can lead to rich and meaningful experiences.

The designed artifacts of our world function across informational (effect) and emotional (affect) modes. The complexity of these operations take on an infrastructural role — what we see day-to-day shapes our experiences and understanding. The opportunity of a designer to practice in …

Constellations, Maria Rull Bescós

Masters Theses

In this book you will find a collection of projects that both reflect and simultaneously reinvent my personal way of seeing the world, which I consider to be a space that is complex, diverse, and in continuous transformation.

Graphic design is the lens through which I examine and understand this complexity, and it is also the medium through which I translate this huge realm into navigable systems of ideas, tales, forms, and experiences.

I have been inspired to produce my own systems in response to those I discover through actively observing my environment (territory), reflecting upon my personal background (origin), …

Improving And Predicting The Effectiveness Of Dispersed, Multi-Disciplinary Design Teams, Matthew Oliver Wald

Theses and Dissertations

The use of dispersed (virtual) teams is growing rapidly in the engineering profession. To help prepare students for work in this type of industry, university engineering courses are requiring students to work in teams. Industry leaders and university faculty are interested in improving and measuring the performance of these distributed teams. Surveys, interviews, and observations from the AerosPACE Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering (AerosPACE) capstone design course are examined to demonstrate how different collaboration tools can be used to best enhance a distributed design team's effectiveness. Collaboration tools to which distributed design teams should give extra consideration at …

Communication In A Visual Mode: Papal Apse Mosaics, Dale Kinney

History of Art Faculty Research and Scholarship

Apse mosaics are a form of visual communication employed by popes throughout the Middle Ages, from the sixth through to the thirteenth centuries. This essay examines the nature of this visual mode and the means by which viewers could understand it. A theory of viewing widely attributed to Pope Gregory I (590–604) is shown to be especially pertinent to early medieval apse mosaics and to the twelfth-century mosaic in the apse of S. Maria in Trastevere. The apses of thirteenth-century popes display a new, more explicit approach to visual messaging that required less interpretive effort by the viewer. Two mosaics …

Deliberate Communication With Pictures: A Science Fiction?, Stuart Medley

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

There are assumptions about images and how these compare with words, in terms of what is afforded us in communicating with each other. These assumptions have been limited by religion and economic imperatives in the past, and by education systems that grew out of those vested interests. One way to push past these assumptions might be to imagine a world without writing. Some science fiction examples are examined for their feasibility. In addition, the reader is reminded of humanity’s pre-writing past, and that pictures that survived from then are viewed through our present contextual lenses as containing a child-like view …

Rebranding Visual Feedback As A Product-Making The Unspeakable Visible, Nicolette Wever

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

PROJECT ABSTRACT

Rebranding Visual Feedback as a Product

Why do visuals work and why do they have such impact on the process of change? Because visuals connect directly with feelings, they have the power to improve the life of others. They have the power to improve and enrich communication. They have the power to handle information overload and they have the power to bridge cultural differences. ‘Images speak louder than words’ because images are connected with emotions in our long term memory. When ten different persons look at one single image, they see ten different things. Like a mirror, the …

Teaching Undergraduate Students To Visualize And Communicate Public Health Data With Infographics, Justin D. Shanks, Betty Izumi, Christina J. Sun, Allea Martin, Carmen Byker Shanks

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this study was to explore the degree to which an infographic assignment facilitated student learning around health science issues, as well as the ways in which the assignment was an effective teaching tool. The objectives of the assignment were to (1) understand the purposes of and potential uses for infographics, (2) cultivate creative visual communication skills, and (3) disseminate a complex health topic to diverse audiences. The infographic assignment was developed at Montana State University and piloted at Portland State University. Students were assigned to small groups of three or four to create an infographic focused on …

Searching For Color In Black & White: Epistemic Closure, The Rit Archives, And The Colonial Roots Of White Invisibility, Andrew James

Theses

When examining an image, a viewer often focuses on what they see and less often on what they are able to see. Nowhere is this as true, and as problematic, as it is with the visual representation of persons of African descent. This study describes how problematic photographic representation was used as a powerful semiotic tool in the Victorian age conquest of the other, was exported to early Hollywood (creating a lucrative hate-based industry), and was then pushed back into the cultural recesses, settling finally into systemic forms of modern oppression, empowered by the invisibility of whiteness. Images from the …

Typography And The Evolution Of Hebrew Alphabetic Script: Writing Method Of The Sofer, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Typography is the study of language letterforms, phonographic alphabetic characters that, when combined with additional characters, form words and/or sentences to express an idea and communicate a message to an audience. The history of typographic design dates back to early civilization and the invention of alphabetic writing systems, formulated and processed through the literary skills of the Hebrew Scribe Ezra whose knowledge and practice offered a significant contribution within a predominantly oral society. By examining the history of Hebrew typography through the discourse of biblical writing systems and alphabetic design, the article addresses the development of Hebrew scripts evolving from …

The Rise Of The Listicle: Using Eye-Tracking And Signal Detection Theory To Measure This Growing Phenomenon, Jason Robert Freeman

Theses and Dissertations

As online technology continues to progress, the modes of communication through which content can be shared have exponentially grown. These include advances in navigational options for presenting information and news online. Though the listicle has been around for centuries, the internet has proliferated its growth, as content producers rely on its structure as a vehicle for sharing information. This research shows that in the case of listicles, format had no direct effect on recall, however, participants who had a greater interest in the content showed significantly higher levels of memory sensitivity. This critical finding suggests that news outlets and content …

Art-Integrated Pedagogy For English And Chinese Language Learners, Regina J. Kuo

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research is to identify how art-integrated teaching methodology might help learners to absorb contents more effectively than the traditional teaching methodology. There are many schools in the U.S. started to use art-integration multimodal approach in school curriculum on different academic subjects. This research focuses on the art-integrated pedagogy in linguistic language, especially for English language learners and Chinese language learners. The researcher approaches the subject with illustrating a collection of personal cases about art-integrated pedagogy used in teaching and learning environment. This art-based research produces two teaching materials designed to answer the questions that were frequently …

Aided Communication For Adults With Developmental Disabilities, Lindsay Bolding

Honors Projects

This honors project is a series of templates that will serve as a guide for residential facilities for individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. What is the most effective way to facilitate communication in residential facilities for adults with developmental disabilities? While working at this type of facility during my time at Bowling Green State University, I have witnessed a need for implementation of new communication routes in the homes. While skill building such as communication is stressed in the homes, plans for staff to fulfill these skills can be lacking. The templates I have created can be used …

Putting Your Best Face Forward: A Critical Visual Analysis Of Gay Advertising Images And Self-Branding On Grindr, Gigina A. Giorgi

Theses

Advertising is used to sell a brand by depicting a lifestyle or persona that one aspires to attain. We brand ourselves, or self-brand, in accordance to how we want to be perceived by others and to convey a particular message. This study addresses the following research questions: 1) How are men presented in advertisements in gay orientated magazines? 2) How do gay men portray themselves in online dating profiles? 3) Is there a relationship between the portrayal of the male body in advertisements in Out and self-portrayal on online dating profiles? 4) What messages are gay men portraying on online …

History Of Visual Communication Design: The Bezelel Academy Of Art, Jerusalem, Shayna Tova Blum

Faculty and Staff Publications

Supported by the modern European Zionist movement, the Bezelel Academy of Art, Jerusalem, was founded in 1906 by Lithuanian artist and Zionist Boris Schatz. In the early years of the academy, work produced by students exhibited the political complexities presented in the Jewish return to Eretz Israel. The expression of concepts addressed in modern Jewish identity and Zionist ideologies were utilized in creative processes of visual communication and design. As most faculty and students were immigrating to Mandatory Palestine from Europe, the academy’s curriculum was developed through the culmination of styles and materials reflective of both European art and design …

Message Journal, Issue 3: What Is The Topography Of The Contemporary Graphic Design / Communication Landscape In Relation To Art Practice? What Occupies The Space Between Disciplines?, Spencer Roberts, Richard Miles, Andrew Spackman, Craig Barber, Cathy Gale, Zachary Kaiser, Daniel Jasper

Message Graphic Communication Design Research

No abstract provided.

Word To Image – Image To Word The Contribution Of Visual Communication To Understanding And Dialog, Michael Renner

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Translation, understood as an interpretation of experience, opens a broad field of inquiry into a variety of disciplines. Hans-Georg Gadder’s description of hermeneutics as a language-based methodology to develop understanding, insight, and agreement within a group, serves as the starting point to analyze the practice of visual communication as a form of interpretation, negotiation, and insight. In a first step, the paper discusses the process of drawing and its relationship to interpretation. The classification of drawing as a gestural activity establishes a link to recent anthropological theories, which see gestures as precursors of the human language. Through an analysis of …

Live Edges: All Possible Adjacencies, Rebecca Leffell Koren

Masters Theses

Edge is a deceptive word. It suggests lines, borders, designations—a kind of certainty. I see edge instead as a porous adjacency—the noise at the intersection of planes that adds meaning, rather than separation. Live Edges is a design research practice that is hyperobservational and multi-planar. Equal parts training ground and methodology, what began as an effort to derive graphic form from the intangible qualities of place developed into an approach to parsing complexity.

Setting locality as my origin point, signifiers of place—materiality, behavior, orientation, architectural form—serve as catalysts for graphic response. I interpret landscape in order to construct my own, …

Practice Makes Practice, Gabriel Melcher

Masters Theses

Graphic Designers today must operate independently of specific tools and media. Modes of production are democratized, and so it is in the ways we choose to operate within these modes that define the value of the field. Practice Makes Practice is a response to this condition, refocusing attention from the products of design as endpoints of process to visual evidence of persistent questioning by the designer.

Through my work I question roles and media, enfolding audience, client, and collaborators into my process. My practice is improvisational, quick, and performative in its response to the specifics of site and circumstance. Through …

Form, Content, And Form As Content, Bon Hae Koo

Masters Theses

Form, Content, and Form as Content demonstrates form as a tool of communication used to explore the role of aesthetics, play, and order in giving form to design. This thesis maps the journey of an aesthetic critic who makes visible and explicit the structures and symbolic meaning valued in the graphic forms we experience.

The practice draws upon the properties of the kaleidoscope, rearranging form to produce new content that questions the reliability of standards, from corporate ranking to color palette trending. Bearing witness to culture, I closely observe and highlight identities and trends that command high stakes in culture. …

Print Media In The Cold War, Madeline Chu

Young Historians Conference

This investigation evaluates the degree to which print media propaganda in America reflected its anti-Communist ideologies during the early years of the Cold War. Specifically, the decade following the end of World War II in 1945 is examined. The messages, mediums, and subjects addressed of four images are analyzed in order to determine the degree to which they embody anti-Communist sentiments. These four pieces include a Time magazine cover from 1950, a comic book cover, a page of a Life magazine fashion article, and an advertisement by Radio Free Europe. Through these images, a conclusion was reached that while anti-Communist …

Learning To Speak The Language Of Influence, Mark Volkers

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"There’s nothing wrong with media that entertains and delights. We need that. But prophetic media takes it a step further and dares ask an audience hard questions and helps us wonder about the state of things on earth today."

Posting about the new literacy of image from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/learning-to-speak-the-language-of-influence/

Exploration Of Mind Mapping As An Organizational Change Tool, Brenda G. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

Mind mapping is a communication tool that has been around for decades though it is rarely discussed as a tool for facilitating organizational change. It is possible for this underutilized communication tool and the ever-present challenge of organizational change to work in harmony on a more consistent basis. This exploratory research asked Change Leaders and Change Participants about their current mind mapping usage or experience, and requested their input on the use of mind mapping for organizational change efforts. There were 76 Change Leaders and 11 others who self-described themselves as Change Participants who responded to a virtual data collection …

A Theoretical Model For The Design Of A Transcultural Visual Communication System In A Posthuman Condition, Haytham Nawar

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This dissertation follows an interdisciplinary approach that weaves practice and theory in the disciplines of visual communication, semiotics, cultural studies, linguistics, and new media art. The research methodology is practice-based located within a historical and contemporary context that allows for artistic experimentation and new knowledge to be generated through reflected creative practice This research proposes a context within which society can develop a transcultural means of communication with the objective of gaining completely unambiguous forms of understanding. This research explores the possibility of an open source scaffold for pictorial language that fosters self-enhancing diversity of production models, communication paths, and …

The Roles Of Sketching In Design: Mapping The Tension Between Functions In Design Sketches, Peter Vistisen

Nordes Conference Series

This paper examines how the role of sketching in design process has been disseminated previously through a review of prior perspectives into the field. We identify that the studies of design sketching has been dominated by two perspectives: studies into what is known as ‘visual thinking’ (Goldschmidt 1991, Schön & Wiggins 1992, Tversky et al. 1999), which examines the designers reflective conversation with the sketch, and a second perspective on sketching as way of ‘visual communication’ with others in the design process (Lugt 2005, Schütze 2003, Buxton 2010). We raise the question of whether it is reasonable to combine the …

Speculative Politics -Fictionalized Spectacle, Prin Limphongpand

Masters Theses

Speculative Politics—Fictionalized Spectacle posits an alternate model for design practice. Borrowing from the genre of science fiction, this design approach activates consideration of possible realities and cultural forms. It raises questions and invents problems instead of solving them. By imagining technologies, policies, laws, and conditions that do not yet exist, design becomes an agent of investigation to highlight current and future social, cultural, and political conditions.

The projects within this thesis reconsider our present situations through methods of speculative documentation. The act of documentation becomes a process of manipulating notions of truth to render fictions from reality. Using subversion, instigation, …

Multiple Influences: From Witnessing Language To Performing It, Viviane Jalil

Masters Theses

5The relationship between language and tools has always been one of influence. Our devices—pens, keyboards, smartphones—make language visible and affect its form and structure. But this exchange goes both ways: all acts of reading and writing are mediated by our expectations of content, and the instruments used to access it.

As modes of communication evolve, so too do the ways in which we think through language, creating a dynamic of perpetual adaptation. With the growing impact of technology upon our behaviors, this dialogue is becoming imbalanced, affecting how we engage with others, how we approach our machines, and how we …

Words Versus Pictures: Leveraging The Research On Visual Communication, Pauline Dewan

Library Publications

Librarians, like many professionals in other occupations, tend to rely on text and underutilize graphics. Research on visual communication shows that pictures have a number of advantages over words. We can interact more effectively with colleagues and patrons by incorporating ideas from this body of research.

Ba Design Visual Communication Re-Branding Project With Men's Health Forum Ireland, Technological University Dublin

Students Learning with Communities

No abstract provided.