Visual communication, as the name suggests is communication through the use of visual aids. These visual aids can include drawing, graphic design, typography and illustration.
This led me to think about the first forms of visual communication that I can remember being exposed to; and that made me think of the illustrated storybooks I read as a kid.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
This is the first book I ever remember reading as a kid. The book is only 14 pages long; the story of a caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly, and only takes a couple minutes to read. It's the artwork that makes this book so memorable. The illustrations are done in a style that looks very much like acrylic paint, and the artist uses bright, vibrant colors for every picture.
Mr. Men by Roger Hargreaves
The Mr Men books were my favorite books as a kid and were probably responsible for my love of character design and the start of my interest in art in general. I would spend hours of my time copying and drawing the Mr Men Characters.
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
When I read this book, I remember thinking that the illustrations were quite scary but at the same time I was fascinated by the the characters and the the detail in the pictures.
The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs
Fungus the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs
These three Raymond Briggs books are essentially graphic novels. They contain fantastic illustrations and amazing stories and were so popular that they were all made into animated films.
The Snowman in particular is a good example of visual communication as the story is told without using any text and relies solely on the illustrations.
For this project I wanted to take the element of visual communication that they use but to evolve it a little. I wanted not only to create a story that is entertaining and that maybe has a moral lesson, as a lot of children's stories do, but also to have an educational side, that would include factual information.
The best way to achieve this, I think would to be to make the story interactive as this will give the audience a more emersive experience and i think that is an important element to have. Everything has become more interactive in the past few years with interactive tv, computer games and the internet providing a wide range of entertainment and education and I think interactivity is almost expected these days. Especially when it comes to kids entertainment and education.
