Visual Communication Project based on Paul Ekman's experiences.

1. Fivos Spyrides
Paul Ekman
Visual Communication is the transportation of different ideas and information,
in forms that can be clearly read or viewed. It is the communication within visual aid.
Visual communication is made of various sectors, such as: Graphic Design,
Illustration, Animation for Books, Prints, Magazines, interactive web design, short
film, design for advertising, promotion, corporate identity, package design etc. It
includes signs, typography, drawings, illustrations, color and generally everything that
an eye can see and create a message. One of the messages that the idea of visual
communication wants to pass to the audience is that, the exploration of the idea that a
visual message text has a greater power to inform, educate or persuade people more
easily. Whatever we see our brain retains better than anything written. The 60% of the
population are visual learners. The visual way is faster and more efficient because the
brain can store easily a photo instead of a thousand words.
The assessment of a decent visual communication design is principally
grounded on evaluating understanding by the audience. There are no universal
references for stating what is beautiful and what is ugly so the evaluation must not be
personal. By eliminating the two dimensional images, there are many other ways to
express some information visually. For example, gestures, body language, animations,
film etc. Visual communication by text is most of the times expressed by emoticons,
and other digital images and it can be said that the use of emoticons can give stronger
messages instead of a text.
There are thousands of firms around the world. Implies that there are
thousands of different logos representing each firm. All those simple shapes of logos
that we see every day, they are not as simple as they look and they are not chosen
randomly. If not all of them, most of them have a psychological work as a
background. The different shapes in logos send various psychological messages. The
use of circles, ovals and ellipses provide a positive emotional message. The use of a
circular shape in a logo can give the message of love, friendship, community,
relationship and unity. Squares and triangles give the feeling of stability and balance.
They also make you think of strength, professionalism and efficiency. Triangles are
most of the times tending to the side of power, science, religion and law. We also
have vertical and horizontal lines. The vertical lines are representing the masculinity,
the strength and the aggression while horizontal lines are expressing community,
tranquility and calmness. When the designers want to show aggression or dynamic on
their logos they use various angles and when they want to give the feeling of youth
they use rounded lines.
Here is where Gestalt theory appears to connect design with psychology.
Gestalt theory explains how small and simple changes in a sentence, such as spacing
can dramatically change the whole meaning of what we see.

2. Visual communication can profit significantly from what Gestalt theory offers.
For example it offers the context of understanding on which designers can base the
design decisions. As Greg Bergmann stated in his book Notes On Graphic Design and
Visual Communication “Gestalt perceptual factor build a visual frame of reference
which can provide the designer with a reliable psychological basis for the spatial
organization of the graphic information.” Since design, and more specifically visual
communication, is related with psychology, I am forced to refer at the name of Paul
Ekman. A human lie detector.
Paul Ekman was born in 15th
of February 1934
in Washington D.C but he never lived there. He was
raised in New Jersey. He is an American psychologist.
He studied at the Adelphi University (1958), the
University of Chicago and in New York University. His
studies in psychology helped him to become the
inventor of the study of different emotions and their
relation to facial expressions. In the early years of Paul
Ekman’s career, viewing the different ideas of
semiotics and ethology influenced his method. He was
mostly concentrated on gestures. During the 1960’s he
focused himself on the face and emotion, initiating a series of studies on expression
and gesture. In 2001 he named by the American Psychological Association as one of
the most influential people in the sector of psychology of the 20th
century. In the
rankings he was the number 59th
out of 100 most mentioned psychologists. He was
awarded as one of the top 100 most influential people of 2009 from the Times
Magazine.
In 2004 when he finished his duties as professor of the University of
California after 30 years, where he was lecturing from 1974. After this he decided to
translate all the researches that he had done up to that date into training tools,
workshops and books, so that can be helpful to humanity. He formed the Paul Ekman
Group PEG LLC, he wrote a book with the title EMOTIONS REVEALED
recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life, he
established online interactive training tools and workshops. When his book TELLING
LIES 4th
edition (first edition 1985) was published in 2009, he got many offers by
different law enforcement groups to help them with the workshops that he provided
and with the online training tools. The Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) helps
the user, in less than an hour, to find concealed emotions not visible for most people
without taking the training sessions. The Subtle Emotion Training Tool (SETT) helps
the user, again in less than an hour, to find the first sign of when an emotion begins to
make its appearance. These tools are proven useful not just to law and national
security sectors but also to therapists, health professionals, salespersons, Human
Recourses people and negotiators.
These tools are working like symbol or logo machines. It is like while you are
driving and you see the stop sign, you stop. Because your brain understands that, that
particular sign is the stop sign and you get it without any words. The same thing is
valid with these machines. For example when a national security agency interrogates
a suspect, when that machine understand that the suspect is lying, it will say it. This is
connected with visual communication because the machine will understand that the
suspect is lying by his facial expressions. So since the face will give a message
without the mouth speaking, this can be consider as a visual communication method.

3. He is famous for his test of emotions recognition, which was named Picture
Of Facial Affect. The test was consisting of 110 black and white pictures of
Caucasian actors representing the six universal emotions and the neutral expressions.
Afterwards he established the Facial Acting Coding System, which made every facial
expression official. F.A.C.S is a research tool useful for measuring any facial
expression a human being can make. Each noticeable component of facial movement
is termed as an Action Unit (AU).
The face is the most common symbol in our every day lives. It is the only
symbol, which can take so many different shapes (expressions). They say that the
cover prepares the viewer for what is going to see behind it. Is like you are standing
outside of a cinema and you wanted to choose a movie by its cover. Obviously you
will choose the most attractive poster. Based on this we can see that even the face can
offer this opportunity. A happy smile hides a happy person; a sad face covers a sad
person and goes on. From our very early age until our last days and our last breath on

4. this planet we can see a face’s expression and we can immediately understand what
that face want’s to show us. Happiness, sadness, anger, enthusiasm, fear, surprise,
contempt, disgust, confusion, shame, focus, exhaustion, seduction, content, curious,
depressed, disappointed, energetic, flirty and many others.
Another field of the studies of Paul Ekman are the micro-expressions. This
type of expressions is for the expressions that are lasting for less than a second (e.g. as
we mentioned above: anger, fear, disgust, happiness etc.). Micro expressions are
important because are helping us to improve our emotional intelligence by developing
our skills of understanding the human face. The face can be seen as an icon, symbol,
photo etc., which is showing what is in the back of that figure. When we see the
Marlboro sign we are thinking immediately of cigarettes, when we see a bitten apple
we are thinking of the biggest computer company and when we see a face with
different gestures, Paul Ekman helps us to understand what is hiding behind of this
face (which it can be seen either as vector or illustration or portrait). Our face is the
label for what we are hiding inside us every minute. It is the only source to understand
how people feel.
He can be named as the human lie director due to his many projects and
researches on how to understand the face with many details. He has searched for
hidden signs in human faces. He inspired the American TV show “Lie to me” which
is a series about how the CIA and FBI agents interrogate the suspects and they
understand there innocence through their facial expression. I am pointing this out to
emphasize the fact that there are about six and a half billion people in the world all
with different characteristics on their face. Every muscle that moves in our face is
telling a story. When we lie the facial expression is the same. For example, the

5. Apple’s icon, you will see it and understand that is representing that computer
company, no matter if you see it upside down, or in any other color.
Not only in the TV, but Ekman’s pioneer helped US forces in real life as well.
CIA, FBI, US Army and other organizations in America used his pioneers for many
of their investigations. New applications on his findings introduced by Apple,
Microsoft, Google, Pixar, Affectiva and many other firms that are creating software
with face and body recognition.
Affectiva is a firm, which aims to create software that helps people. All
programs are based on facial expressions, which are all created on Paul Ekman’s
pioneer. The firm said that in the near future all software will be based on facial and
emotional expressions. Another firm, which is in the same sector, is London based
Real Eyes. Its CEO, Mr. Jaatma said: “Less of keyboards, less of using a mouse,
more of users just being themselves. More devices and more applications will
understand the face of the person” and he added, “Full body gestures tracking will
enable more understanding of emotions and allow us to categorize behavior in places
like shopping malls, casinos and transportation hubs”.
These quotes can make us think of the future. The future of visual
communication. Visual communication is the most natural form of human interaction.
Before the invention of writing people were making paintings on rocks, leafs and cave
walls to achieve a conversation, to tell a story, to send a letter and generally a painting
it was their only way for communication. This is how the word visual communication
coming from. Paintings and later photos captured the top historical moments of
humanity in much more effective way than writing. The following photograph will
show the progress of visual communication from its beginning up to now. The
following picture is showing the progress of visual communication.
[taken from: The Future Of Visual Communication. Applications For Government And Their Impact on the IT Infrastructure –
POLYCOM]

6. The visual communication was the past and the present of our lives. The
future has to be even more interesting and exciting. It has to be something that will
make our lives easier. The firms that are specialized on the pioneer of Paul Ekman
can create different programs for airport security, in cinemas, in the roads, in the
shops and everywhere. For example in fashion visual communication can work for the
benefit of the firm. In my opinion if they put a camera, with facial expression
recognition on the dolls of each shop’s show room, the customer’s face will work as a
symbol/logo. When the people will see the cloths on the doll, the camera will capture
the expressions of their faces. This can help the firm to understand the percentage of
costumers that like that product and the customers that did not. The face will work as
a symbol and will help the firms to avoid the interviews to individual for asking if
they like particular products or not. Here I will state two ancient phrases that state that
the outside appearance is leading the inner characteristics. “Οία η µορφή, τοιάδε και η
ψυχή” this is an ancient Greek proverb which says that however is the form; this is
how is the soul. Which means that our outside form is the same as our inside soul.
The next proverb is coming from the Latin language “Vultus est index animi”. This
means “the face is the guide of the soul” which again it has the same meaning as the
previous one.
The reason that I have chosen Paul Ekman for this particular project is to show
the connection of design with scientific sectors and that design is not just a simple
sector, easy to everyone. The fact that the design sector can easily connect with a
scientific subject such as psychology, it makes me happy that I am into this sector and
I am ready to help and improve it.
Recourses
http://oeilsj.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/visual-communication-and-its-role-in-advertising/
http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/Whitepapers/Visual_Communication.pdf
http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/avantgarde.html
http://www.fastcompany.com/1800709/human-lie-detector-paul-ekman-decodes-faces-depression-terrorism-and-joy
http://www.scientificjournals.org/journals2008/articles/1288.pdf
http://www.taivara.com/mobile-a-perfect-tool-customer-validation/
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/emotient-launches-new-software-development-kit-for-real-time-emotion-recognition-
235564101.html
http://www.pixarportal.com/blog.php?id=lie-experts-advising-pixar
http://www.creativebloq.com/logo-design/psychology-logo-shapes-8133918
http://tdlc.ucsd.edu/events/boot_camp_2009/tdlc_bootcamp2009_facs_cert.pdf
http://www.paulekman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Classifying-Facial-Action.pdf
http://infogr.am/Paul-Ekman-318251?src=web
PDF: The Future Of Visual Communication. Applications For Government And Their Impact on the IT Infrastructure –
POLYCOM