Information, ideas and messages are communicated to targeted audiences through visual communications.

When analysing visual communications in the exam, you may be asked to address the following: target audiences, purposes, contexts, final presentations, design elements and principles, media, materials, methods and ways to engage and maintain the audience’s attention.

Three design fields are addressed in this study: communication, environmental design and industrial design. You should understand key design features of existing visual communications associated with these fields and be prepared to analyse examples. 

The audience

Be specific when discussing or describing the target audience - ‘the general public’ is too broad for most analysis questions in the exam.

When given a visual communication to analyse, think about the design field it comes from, how the design is targeted towards specific audiences, and why certain imagery, colours, typefaces and so forth may have been used.

There are several important characteristics of a target audience that may influence the design of a visual communication, including:

age

gender

interests

location (demographic)

socioeconomic status

cultural background.

Attracting a target audience

Designers use various techniques for gaining and maintaining the attention of a target audience. They use visual and written language. For example: shock, humour, empathy, nostalgia, associations with brand power or celebrities and even appealing to our sense of justice.

Purposes

The purpose is ‘what’ the visual communication is required/designed to do. The purposes of a visual communication are:

to advertise

to depict

to guide

to identify

to inform

to promote

to teach.

Contexts

The context of a visual communication refers to where the visual communication can be found or located.

Do not confuse the context with the presentation format.

An example to consider: a new range of fashion jeans shown as an illustration, may be featured on a poster that is displayed in a retail shop window or featured on a website. Other contexts to consider are: the side of a tram or bus, retail outlet counters or stands, book displays, and shopping centers.

Final presentations

For the purpose of the exam you should know and be able to correctly identify a wide range of presentation formats such as: posters, billboards, bus shelter advertising, magazine advertising, apps, packaging, direct mail, flyers, brochures, book and CD covers, programs, menus, building plans, maps, directories, and website home pages.

Design elements and principles

You need to be able to describe how the design elements and principles are used to create successful visual communications.

This includes knowing the characteristics and functions of the design elements and principles.

For example:

Hierarchy can be used to create a focal point in a composition, and colour can be used to initially attract a target audience’s attention. Scale is often deliberately used for creating large event posters (such as grand final football posters) for vehicle traffic and for smaller scale posters for the same event for pedestrian traffic. This is an example of a visual communication displayed in multiples, viewed in two different positions – by pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Designers may combine type and cropping to create a contemporary layout or shape, and figure-ground to produce a set of steps for a diagram.

Methods, media and materials

Exam questions may require you to identify and describe a range of methods used, including manual and digital techniques. You may be required to evaluate the effectiveness of these in regards to a specific audience, or ways that they assist in communicating information or messages.

Look carefully at any visual communication provided for analysis and question why a method has been used, including which characteristics of the target audience may have an impact on this decision, and devices that gain attention and maintain engagement of an audience.

You be asked to discuss how media and materials when combined or used together, create impact.

You may be questioned on ways several methods can be used together within the one visual communication, or what media, materials, and methods a designer may choose to work with, at different stages in the design process.

Engaging the audience

Designers know their target audience and what will attract or ‘speak’ to them. They understand the purpose/s, contexts and final presentations for their visual communications. They use media, materials and select methods to attract the target audience. But they have other ways to engage their audience.

This can be:

humor

incorporating handmade elements

doing something unexpected like paper-engineering techniques to produce a three-dimensional pop-up.

Designers may deliberately use imagery that is current in the media or misuse a well-known image to deliberately ‘cause a stir’ and engage people.

In regards to 

• Audience 

• Purpose 

• Context 

• Identify generally means that you are required to locate the element and/or principle/audience/purpose within the visual communication example.

• Describe requires a description of the function/role of the element and/or principle/audience/purpose within the example 

• Evaluate requires an opinion of how successful the application has been in relation to the audience/purpose  

Communication Design

• Graphic designers develop and produce visual information for both digital and print media.

• Digital and web designers create designs using multimedia to develop and prepare information for digital publication.

• Advertisers promote a product, service or event for a target audience.

• Print publication/book illustration and typographic designers often work alongside other designers to support the project through specific skills such illustration or typographic design. They may work in a freelance setting or within a studio practice. Typography continues to be an important part of design. Quite often typographers are contracted to design a unique typeface for a graphic designer to use on a project.

• Packaging or surface designers are the design professionals that understand how to connect form and structure, materials, colour, imagery and typography with product information to create a marketable design for a consumer product. It is quite often a graphic designer who undertakes this role. However, there may be a designer who works as a specialist in this area.

• Logo design or brand identity is concerned with the visual aspects of a company or organisation’s brand or identity. Graphic designers will obviously undertake these projects; however, there are some design companies that will specialise solely on creating brand identities.

Environmental Design

• Architectural design refers to the actual design and layout of spaces.

• Interior designers work with the interior space of commercial and residential interiors, to design spaces that work, and can be used effectively.

• Landscape design combines the landscaping of a property and the design of landscape elements and plants within it. It involves aesthetic, horticultural and environmental sustainability components.

• Set design and exhibition/display design. This area of design may include designers who specialise in a specific field of design, such as industrial design. They design, organise, construct and install: trade exhibitions, permanent shop displays, museum exhibits, interactive displays, and stage or theatre design.

Industrial Design

• Engineering design is the design, construction and manufacture of articles or products required in a technical world. These may include anything from a small part for a machine, through to a large bridge, superstructures, roads or boats. Engineering design is a broad term, encompassing a large field with many specialty areas.

• Product designers or industrial designers develop and prepare products for manufacture. They are particularly concerned with those aspects of products that relate to human usage and behaviour, and product appeal.

• Furniture designers develop and prepare furniture for manufacture. They are often concerned with those aspects of furniture that relate to human usage and interaction, product appeal and fashion. Furniture design can be considered a specialist area of industrial design (product design).

Intellectual property and copyright

For the purpose of the exam you should know what the following terms are:

• Intellectual property − this refers to the property generated through intellectual or creative activity; for example, a logo design or a story.

• Copyright with patents and trademarks – original ideas and design that has been registered.

• Copyright where there is no official registration – they are unregistered rights.

What does copyright mean?

It is a legal concept, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it.

It protects an original expression of idea/s.

Works that commonly have copyright are: books, films, music, sound recordings, newspapers, magazines, and artworks.

What is a trademark?

Is used to distinguish/identify goods or services from those of another.

It is a right granted for works such as a logo, artwork, word, name, phrase or even a sound or smell (think perfume here).

You register a trademark and this legally enforces and gives the commercial rights to use what is being registered.

On page 6 of the 2015 exam resource book you will find photographs and a logo of the Northcote Veterinary Clinic. You will also find black and white versions of these images in the 2015 question and answer book. You will need to refer to these images when answering this question. Go to the VCAA website to access these.

The client, Northcote Plaza Veterinary Clinic, worked with a designer to produce a range of promotional material to create a business identity.

(VCAA, 2015)

1. Refer to Figure 9 of the 2015 question and answer book. Figure 9 is a detail taken from the Northcote veterinary clinic logo. Describe what research the designer may have undertaken for inspiration and explain how the research was developed into the imagery shown.

2. Using evidence from the image in Figure 9, identify one dominant design element and explain its effectiveness.

3. With reference to Figures 10 and 11, explain how the designer adapted the dog and cat imagery for the new context of the sculptures situated outside the veterinary clinic.

4. With reference to Figure 11, describe a technique that the designer has used to gain attention with the sculptures situated outside the veterinary clinic.