Communication Theory

Communication Theory

How is it relevant to us as graphic designers?

Information Source
Transmitter
Channel
Receiver
Destination

My thoughts on this process in relation to graphic design is:

Information source - Research
Transmitter - Designing
Channel - Production/process
Receiver - TA
Destination - Impact it had on the TA


The classes thought on this process in relation to graphic design is:

Information source - Problem client information
Transmitter - The employee of the graphic designer
Channel - The graphic design itself/the medium
Receiver - Getting the idea
Destination - The TA getting the message and a solution

Encoding is how you empathise with decoding.




What problem could occur on each stage?

Information Source - Wrong info, not enough information given, wrong research, bad info given by the client.
Transmitter - Not including your TA, working at the wrong scale, bad concept.
Channel - Wrong stock used, the cost, quality of work, the wrong scale.
Receiver - Wrong Idea, misinterpreted the brief.
Destination - Location, lack of feedback.



The classes thoughts on the problems in stages:

Think about what would make a problem for the next stage?

Information Source - Problems with the idea, bad information given by the client.
Transmitter - Misinterpretation of information, bad concept, rushed, no consideration of audience.
Channel - Print problems, cost of conveying, location (context of channel), limitations of medium.
Receiver - Could be offensive, misinterpreted, language used.
Destination - Lack of feedback, hate design.



What strategies could we do to improve stages?

Information Source - Question lots! Checking, researching more, consult, pre-prep.
Transmitter/Ecoding - Practice, testing & experimenting with designs, mock-up, feedback from decoding.
Channel - Planning, consider limitation of channel & factor them solution to strong enough to fight back problems.
Decoding/Receiver - Speaking to people in audience language.
Destination - Right time on ads, right place in situe.

Noise in stages:

Information Sources - money men, boring clients, companies ethics.
Transmitter - Your style, interesting client.
Channel - Ageing of medium, technology problems.
Receiver - Active understanding, different visual language, disabilities, where it is? Surroundings.
Destination - The way people interpret it, peoples opinions wrong audience, subculture opinions.





Subcategorised into levels:

Level A - Technical problems - signal
How accurately can the message be transmitted.

Level B - Semantic problems - meaning of words or image.
How precisely the message is conveyed?

Level C - Effectiveness problems - creating a desired effect.
how effectively does the received meaning is affected behaviour?

Catogories our problems into levels:

Level A - Badly printed, broken equipment, faulty laptop, problems with technique, bad skills with software.

Level B - Research, bad concept, people not understanding design, language, misinterpretation, TOV, colour schemes.

Level C - Peoples opinions, marketing issues, cost & time, location, wrong medium, misinterpretation, feedback lack.





Noise
Anything unintended added to signal between transmission & reception.

Eg. Zines - badly printed, hard to read, low cost, use of subcultural language.
      TV - Rubbish television to watch, fuzzy signal.

For visual communications they sometimes use noise to enhance the product.
Creatively you can be with noise.

Mcdonalds added words to create different meaning.
Esso - aded lines over the s to create dollar signs.

Noise can be a feature you aim for. It can be an outcome of the design. A problem & the solution.




Redundancy & Entropy

Both about what is communicated.

On telephone line - a redundant line, no electrical faults, smooth communication.

Entropy - Leakage, unpredictable, changes into something different within communication.

Social Communication

Redundant communication - entire society is based around this.

Redundant communicative act is successful amount of info. It is low content and conventional, understandable or predictable.




Examples of redundant communication in society:


Redundant message - make our lifes easier.
Mcdonalds - very redundancy - striped down communication.

Entropy
Low predictability
Unconventional
High information.

Much more complex & much more thought process on the audience.

Unconventional hand shake - do a hand shake but have an electric shock.

Not immediately understandable.

The graphic design aims for communication to be.
Minimise the entropy & maximise the redundant.

Sometimes might need to do something topic to get peoples attention. Make people question & make me think.

Fine art trades of entropy.
High info to a niche audience.

Redundancy is conservative.
Taps into social codes & conventional.
Change everything
Problem is that politically it can be problematic.

Redundant communication - can represent prejudice but not necessarily like that.

Etropic - challenging conventions.