Unit 3: Overview & Assignment
Question:
How can the graphic medium enhance and enrich the verbal message?
Overview:
In our engagement with the world around us, and our routine to “make sense” out of complexity, we take for granted the perceptual and holistic principles this interaction involves. That perception of parts and configurations as a holistic system, or language, depends greatly on the use of socalled “gestalt” principles (i.e., figure-ground, similarity, closure, etc.) and how these serve the purpose to communicate. Since graphic design presents ideas primarily via graphic means, awareness of these perceptual principles is critical for designers to help their products stimulate clarity and unity, curiosity and interest, inquiry and insight. We will look into this power of graphic design to discover how an abstract (non-visual) object like a “word” (a verbal means to represent an idea) can be enriched significantly toward a deep sense of poetic insight due to its graphic/visual delivery, and thus provide a lasting impression of value for the ideas it holds.
Learning objectives:
— Develop visual sensibilities
— Learn about “gestalt” principles and their holistic system as “language”
— Observe the power of the visual to affect the non-visual
— Develop mind-mapping skills
— Become aware of the practice to design for experience
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