ITAP #3

Researching the content

Within the world of visual communication researching the content for new briefs is a very important part as without it, the produced outcome will be of a poor standard compared to its contemporaries and it will not have any relevance. The whole point of research is to understand your ideas more thoroughly and then be able to take the best one(s) further. Only by doing this can you reach a well thought out final outcome that showcases your skill and meets most of, if not all the criteria of the brief.

The first thing you need to look into when researching the content is the subject of the brief. You need to know what it is and what’s it’s for, and then you can start researching it more thoroughly. Next would come the audience. If the brief was to design a poster for a children’s film, you wouldn’t create a poster featuring adult content that was obviously specifically aimed at adults as that goes against the brief and is for the wrong audience. You need to think about the people who will be seeing the film, which in this case would be young children. Research aspects of design that are known to appeal to that specific demographic. Without researching the audience properly, the entire outcome can fail as it wouldn’t be relevant and wouldn’t hold any appeal.

Finally, the message. This is the most important stage as it’s the main point of the brief. It needs to be easily communicated. In this case as it would be for a children’s film it would need to be quite simple, but also eye catching, playful and amusing. This is the area that should draw the intended audience in.

Researching the practice

When researching any practice you need to start by asking questions. With regards to visual communication one of the first questions you might ask could be ‘How do visual communicators think?’ and this can start the whole research process by exploring how they think and get those thoughts onto paper, by looking into the different ways people do this and their respective styles. More questions can arise from this such as ‘Who’s style do I admire? Who inspires me?’ and this can lead into exploring artists’ backgrounds and how they work, finding out how decide what style/colour/typeface/media to use in different projects. This all helps to understand the differing ways visual communicators work and how broad the possibilities of the practice are, showing you what has already been designed, and how. Observation, experimentation, reading, listening, exploring, all are key to researching and learning.