Key question
How do you get your message across to your audience the way you intend?
Visual communication means: someone wants to convey something to an audience via a channel. Whether this succeeds depends not only on the design, but also on the context, shared codes and disruptions. Those who understand these factors can design with greater purpose.
Learning objective: You are able to identify the elements of a communication situation, recognise breakdowns in communication, and formulate a communication goal along with a core message.
Design begins with a clear intent.
1.1 / Who says what to whom?
Every message has a sender and an audience.
A simple communication model helps you organise any design task:
01
Sender
Who is speaking? A company, club, or institution, each with their own interests.
02
Message
What should get across? The content, condensed into a core message.
03
Channel
Where will it appear? Poster, feed, flyer, or screen, each with its own rules.
04
Audience
Who is the recipient? People with their own knowledge, their own interests, and little time.
The model dates back to Shannon and Weaver; the question 'Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect?' was formulated by Harold Lasswell in 1948. It has been expanded many times for the media. What matters for you: you are not designing for yourself, but mediating between the sender and the audience. The message only truly forms in the mind of the recipient.
The message is shaped by the audience.
1.2 / Context, Code and Interference
The same design does not look the same everywhere.
A message is always read in context: in a place, at a time, in a certain mood. For it to be understood, the sender and the audience need a common code – shared rules for signs, language, and imagery.
A disruption is anything that weakens the message: competition in the surrounding environment, poor legibility, ambiguity, or bad timing. You can reduce many disruptions through design.
01
Context
Location, timing and environment determine how a message is read.
02
Code
Signs only work if the audience knows their rules.
03
Disruption
Anything that gets between the message and the audience weakens the impact.
Know where your message lives.
1.3 / The communication objective
Those who know the objective can evaluate the impact.
Before you start designing, clarify your communication objective: do you want your audience to know, feel, or do something? Informing, inspiring, activating, and reminding all require different design approaches. From this, derive a core message that can fit into a single sentence.
The tone of voice determines how the message sounds: factual, warm, playful or cheeky. Goal, audience, core message and tone of voice together form the basis for every briefing.
If it doesn't fit into a single sentence, it isn't clear yet.
Exercise
Decipher a message
Task: Analyse an existing cultural poster using the communication model.
STEP 1
Identify the sender, message, channel, and audience.
STEP 2
Describe the context in which the poster is hanging.
STEP 3
Highlight potential faults and their causes.
STEP 4
Rephrase the key message in one sentence.
Evaluation: Compare your key messages. Where did you agree, where did you disagree, and why?