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Course description

Learning to see! This is a fundamental, non-laboratory class that will explore a broad range of visual topics as they pertain to communication. Gain a better understanding of photographs, layouts, illustrations, videos and information design. Requires an additional 1-4 hours per week outside the classroom to complete reading, written and visual assignments.

Performance objectives

Upon successful completion of Introduction to Visual Communication students should

• Understand how the eye and the brain work together in visual communication
• Recognize basic visual and Gestalt principles in existing work
• Create work that uses visual principles effectively
• Understand the role of color in visual communication
• Be able to explain what makes an attempt at visual communication effective or ineffective

Let's start:

Here are examples of visual communication from right here in Cleveland:

House for Sale   |   Eye Clinic   |   Traffic Advisory   |  Calligraphy

Look at each one, then ask yourself "which does a better job of communicating the idea?" and of course, "why?"

This leads us to...

Rule #1

It's ______ possible to ______ communicate

Fill in both blanks with the same word.

Give up?

Here's the answer (I give up)

Clothes make the man, or, you're always saying something

One semester I did an experiment to see if the clothes I wore made an impression on students.

Clearly, the clothes did communicate something, and it wasn't exactly what I expected.
Here's what the students said.

More examples to think about:

Here are 3 ways of presenting a chunk of information (text).

Version 1      Version 2     Version 3

Look at each one, then ask yourself "which does a better job of communicating the idea?" and of course, "why?"