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Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development concerned with how media communicate with people. A communication design approach is concerned with developing the message and aesthetics in media. It also creates new media channels to ensure the message reaches the target audience. Due to overlapping skills, some designers use graphic design and communication design interchangeably.

Communication design can also refer to a systems-based approach, in which the totality of media and messages within a culture or organization are designed as a single integrated process rather than a series of discrete efforts. This is done through communication channels that aim to inform and attract the attention of the target audience. Design skills must be used to create content suitable for different cultures and to maintain a pleasurable visual design. These are crucial pieces of a successful media communications kit.^[1]

Within the Communication discipline, the emerging framework for Communication as Design focuses on redesigning interactivity and shaping communication affordances.^[2] Software and applications create opportunities for and place constraints on communication. Recently, Guth and Brabham examined the way that ideas compete within a crowdsourcing platform, providing a model for the relationships among design ideas, communication, and platform.^[3] The same authors have interviewed technology company founders about the democratic ideals they build into the design of e-government applications and technologies.^[4] Interest in the Communication as Design framework continues growing among researchers.

Overview

Communication design seeks to attract, inspire, and motivate people to respond to messages and to make favorable impact.^[5] This impact oriented toward the objectives of the commissioning body, which can be either to build a brand or move sales. It can also range from changing behaviors, to promoting a message, to disseminating information. The process of communication design involves strategic business thinking, including using market research, creativity, problem-solving, and technical skills and knowledge such as colour theory, page layout, typography, and creating visual hierarchies.^[5] Communication designers translate ideas and information through a variety of media. In order to establish credibility and influence audiences through the communication, communication designers use both traditional tangible skills and the ability to think strategically in design and marketing terms.

The term communication design is often used interchangeably with visual communication, but it maintains a broader meaning that includes auditory, vocal, touch, and olfactory senses.^[6] Examples of communication design practices include information architecture, editing, typography, illustration, web design, animation, advertising, ambient media, visual identity design, performing arts, copywriting and professional writing skills applied in the creative industries.^[7]

Education

Students of communication design learn how to create visual messages and broadcast them to the world in new and meaningful ways. In the complex digital environment around us, communication design has become a powerful means of reaching out to the target audiences. Therefore, it expands its focus beyond user-experiences to user-networks.^[8] Students learn how to combine communication with art and technology. The communication design discipline involves teaching how to design web pages, video games, animation, motion graphics, and more.

Communication Design has content as its main purpose. It must achieve a reaction, or get a customer to see a product in a genuine way to attract sales or effectively communicate a message. Communication design students are often Illustrators, Graphic Designers, Web designers, Advertising artists, Animators, Video Editors, Motion graphic artists, Printmakers, and Conceptual Artists. The term communications design is fairly general considering its interdisciplinary practitioners operate within various mediums to get a message across.^[9]

Subdisciplines

Visual communication design

Visual communication design is the design working in any media or support of visual communication.^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13] This is considered by some to be more accurate alternative terminology to cover all types of design applied in communication. It uses a visual channel for message transmission, reflecting the visual language inherent to some media.^[14]^[15]^[16] Unlike the terms graphic design (graphics)^[17]^[13] or interface design (electronic media),^[13] it is not limited to support a particular form of content.^[13]

Print media design

Print media design is a graphic design discipline that creates designs for printed media.^[17] Print design involves the creation of flyers, brochures, book covers, t-shirt prints, business cards, booklets, bookmarks, envelope designs, signs, letterheads, posters, CD cover, print media design templates, and more.^[1] The goal of print design is to use visual graphics to communicate a specific message to viewers.

Footnotes

^ ^a ^b "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-13. Retrieved 2014-10-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ Aakhus, Mark (2007-03-01). "Communication as Design". Communication Monographs. 74 (1): 112–117. doi:10.1080/03637750701196383. ISSN 0363-7751. S2CID 143543646.
^ Guth, Kristen L.; Brabham, Daren C. (2017-08-04). "Finding the diamond in the rough: Exploring communication and platform in crowdsourcing performance". Communication Monographs. 84 (4): 510–533. doi:10.1080/03637751.2017.1359748. ISSN 0363-7751. S2CID 54045924.
^ Brabham, Daren C.; Guth, Kristen L. (2017-08-01). "The Deliberative Politics of the Consultative Layer: Participation Hopes and Communication as Design Values of Civic Tech Founders". Journal of Communication. 67 (4): 445–475. doi:10.1111/jcom.12316. ISSN 1460-2466.
^ ^a ^b Aakhus, Mark (2007). "Communication as Design". Communication Monographs. 74 (1): 112–117. doi:10.1080/03637750701196383. ISSN 0363-7751.
^ Albadi, Noorh; Zollinger, Stephanie Watson (2021-07-26). "Dominant Learning Styles of Interior Design Students in Generation Z". Journal of Interior Design. 46 (4): 49–65. doi:10.1111/joid.12204. ISSN 1071-7641.
^ Martins, Nuno; Raposo, Daniel, eds. (2023). Communication Design and Branding: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Springer Series in Design and Innovation. Vol. 32. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-35385-7. ISBN 978-3-031-35384-0.
^ Herfurth, Lorenz (2023-04-01). "The dynamics of practice and their relevance for the development of an open studio culture in design education". Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education. 22 (1): 89–106. doi:10.1386/adch_00063_1. ISSN 1474-273X.
^ Craib, David; Imbesi, Lorenzo (2015). "Perception, Meaning, and Design: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Visual Communication Design Theory". The International Journal of Visual Design. 9 (2): 13–26. doi:10.18848/2325-1581/CGP/v09i02/38758. ISSN 2325-1581.
^ MUNARI, Bruno. Design and visual communication. Chronicle Books, 2006
^ WOLLNER, Alexandre. Visual Design 50 years. Cosac & Naify, 2003
^ LANGENFELDS, Ranya. Visual design. TEAME, 1997
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Davis, Meredith; Hunt, Jamer (2017). Visual Communication Design: An introduction to design concepts in everyday experience (1 ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. doi:10.5040/9781474208468. ISBN 978-1-4742-0846-8.
^ LEEUWEN, Theo Van. Reading images: the grammar of visual design. Routledge, 2006 - Pg. 4
^ FRASCARA, Jorge. Communication design: principles, methods, and practice. Allworth Communications, Inc., 2004 - Pg. 4
^ GARRET, Lillian. Visual design: a problem-solving approach. Michigan: R. E. Krieger Pub. Co., 1975.
^ ^a ^b MEGGS, Philip B. A history of graphic design. Michigan, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992 - Pg.xiii Preface