Effective visual communication relies on both technical skills and tools, with skills being more important. While tools receive much attention, understanding principles like clarity, coherence, meaningful visual treatment, analogy, structure, typography, and contrast allow for successful visual communication regardless of the specific tools used. Mastering these principles is key to creating visual messages that engage audiences.

1. Effective visual communication depends on the successful
Visual incorporation of both skills and tools. In many cases the tools
receive more attention (and concern) than the skills that support
the fundamental use of any tool. An example of this is the
Communication apprehension many people feel about learning & keeping up-to-
date with tools for drawing—3-D modeling software, graphics
packages, and even pen & pencil sketching. Understanding and
mastering the skills that motivate how and why any particular tool
Principles is used is more important to the repeatedly successful visual
communication.
StoryViz: me 375a Visual communication relies on manipulating fundamental
graphical elements—shapes, lines, color, text—as well as well
expressing thematic content—the message motivating the work.
It is a complicate challenge that requires not only knowing what
you want to say, but also crafting an expression of that message
visually. This is a 24 hour-per-day demand: visual communication
has to work even when you are taking a break.
Each of the following principles supports a body of skills that
serve expert and novice visual communicators. They each
require individual practice and as such should be approached with
an understanding that at any given moment it will be difficult to
focus on them all simultaneously. Eventually they will all function
in harmony in ways that support any given tool relevant to the
state of the practice: regardless of the technology at the time,
you can be an effective visual communicator by understanding
principles complement available tools.
Clarify to Amplify
Consider the Whole above the
Parts
Use Treatment to Convey
Meaning
Add an Analogy
Design within a Structure
Use Type as a Visual Object
ALWAYS: Use Contrast

2. Clarify to Amplify
Distill the content & messaging of your communicated product
to the smallest set possible.
Why does it work?
Frequently your visually communicated product has a tiny window
of impact opportunity: people are on the run or attention spans are
dreadfully short. Maybe your message is one of 50 or 100 being
considered for a project. Crisp articulation of a single vision helps
communicate effectively.
Clarity does not forego detail. In fact, it might be license to get
fanatical about details: if you want to communicate that your
product or service is about LUXURY, then you can distill the
Consider the Whole above the
entirety of your effort down to communicating luxury. That is a Parts
different challenge than communicating, say, luxury and
convenience at the same time. The latter is much trickier! Thematic coherence is critical to the overall effectiveness of
communication. Small details and bits of glory are important
too(!), but they must support a larger intent.
Why does this work?
The overall intent of your work (the “Whole”) will dictate when and
how specific efforts can really shine. Consider any large effort in
visual communication as a multi-course meal. While a particular
course may stand out as a delight—an appetizer of bacon-wrapped
shrimp or a flamboyant baked Alaska—it will not compensate for
thematic variability or inconsistency in presentation.
Cartoonists are exemplar practitioners of considering the whole
Use Treatment to Convey Meaning above the parts: their practice is to first “rough out” images by
blocking in general shapes with pencil or pen. The next steps
The visual elements when viewed from afar can communicate include taking more time and effort to flesh out details of action and
content as effectively as the particular intellectual content of characters. The process continues, using more refined tools such as
the work. Treating visual elements such as font, color, line type, ink & color. (This process holds true with digital tools as well). Final
and graphic elements as a suite is critical for cohesive steps includes very fine details such as eyelashes, shading, etc. The
communication. important part is that at any given time, the overall action &
composition of the work is evident—even from the very first rough-
out step. The same should be true of any visual design.
Why does it work?
People instinctively make associations among elements and they
equivalently attribute meaning based on those associations. Take a
pirate map for example: a hand-scrawled font, dotted lines, faded
and crinkled lines, and graphic elements (e.g, an “X”, skull & bones
flag), all work together to communicate a theme.
Consider how and when you might want to use treatment to
support your message. If you were designing an income tax form Add an Analogy
for first-time filers, the pirate treatment would not necessarily
support the meaning & instruction critical for success. However, Leverage easily understood concepts & successes from others to
the pirate treatment might be effective in communicating communicate your work more quickly & compellingly.
adventure and discovery at a science center display or for
messaging to school kids going off to summer camp.
Why does it work?
Visual communication faces the threats of time and comprehension.
An audience will frequently only offer the gift of time with a
complementary increase in comprehension. Analogies can make
new and complicated concepts more palatable to audiences. A slide
rule is like an abacus; a calculator uses the same principles as a slide
rule; a computer is essentially a more powerful calculator; a micro-
computer is the machine on your desk shrunken to a tiny chip.
Analogies are particularly effective in initial messaging to “hook” an
audience with something familiar—an easy win—and then again with
closing messaging in order to ensure that someone can feel
confident & comfortable in walking away & sharing the new
information.

3. Design with a Structure
Use the physical configuration of your content to support the
message; erratic graphical structure can distract focus.
Why does it work?
Humans are excellent at recognizing patterns among elements as
well as attributing meaning to those patterns and groups.
Structural features, such as an aligning grid, and consistent style
structure, such as font type & sizing hierarchy, all present
information in a repeated and predictable pattern. Generations of
repeated formats have created platforms that can serve visual
designers today. An example in western culture is the tendency for
text to begin at the upper left of a page and progress to the lower
right. That now “simple” characteristic is an incredibly powerful tool
in the design of visual messaging: people will begin the engagement
of your text at the upper left unless you do something to force the
engagement in a different sequence.
In the context of your own self-contained work, micro patterns &
structure can create similar guides to help an audience focus where Use Type as a Visual Object
it is important, understand when to move on, and recognize calls to
action. Some examples include left-justifying text, using columns to Type and text are every bit as important as graphics and colors.
align paragraphs, using color as an indicator of like and unlike
elements, and countless other elements. It is imperative to
understand that these elements should considered from the very
beginning of the design right through to the last stroke.
Why does it work?
Type matters because you can see it. That’s pretty simple, but it is
often under-recognized. Take a “normal” textbook, for example:
content is very often separated into verbal messaging and graphical
messaging. You read the words and you see the pictures. The
sneaky part is that you see the words too. Use that fact to your
advantage—people who design logos, icons, and signs use this fact
to their advantage all of the time.
Get familiar with multiple font families and pay attention to the
ways in which they are used. Some fonts “feel” better in particular
ways than other do: by making a choice about a unique font, you are
making a unique statement within your messaging. Does you font
look playful? Does it feel too serious?
Create cohesion among your work by using a consistent font
Use Contrast throughout the content. Changing font styles & sizes erratically can
violate the structure of your work and create confusion as a result.
Contrast is simply the difference between things. This difference
can be graphic—light and dark, thick or thin—or it can be thematic
—silly or serious, expensive or cheap. Knowing how and why to
use contrast is the single most important skill in visual
communication.
Why does this work?
The innate human capacity for identifying patterns comes from the
ability to discern differences (contrast) between elements. It is
instinctive to see differences among multiple elements. Knowing
that an audience will automatically clue into differences is the first
step in understanding how to present information.
Contrast can be as straight-forward as using black text on a white
background (visual contrast) to using only images versus text in a
slide presentation. The latter is a hybrid of visual & thematic
contrast; understanding how presentations are normally delivered is
an important step in identifying a point of contrast for your own
presentation—a difference that will make your work more distinctive.