Communication through the ages

What is Communication?
What is Visual Communication?
What is Communication?

 Communication is the the process of

transferring information from a sender to a
receiver with the use of a medium in which the
communicated information is understood by
both sender and receiver.

Stacey Huish
Communication process
Type of communication

 Verbal communication refers to the form of

communication in which message is transmitted
verbally;
 communication is done with
interview, writing and with picture.

 Verbal Communication is divided into

 Oral Communication
 Written Communication
 Visual communication
Type of communication

 Nonverbal communication is the sending or

receiving of wordless messages. We can say
that nonverbal communication can be :
gesture, body language, posture, tone of
voice or facial expressions,
 it is called nonverbal communication.
Nonverbal communication is all about the
body language of speaker
Mass communication
Mass communication
 Mass communication has become a vital and seamless part of everyday
human life.

 Today’s society is dependent on mass communication —from morning

television news to social media feeds and blog posts; from personalized
advertising messages to branded content sponsored by a specific company.

 Messages sent by mass communicators help inform the public and often
help set agendas and public opinion.

 Mass communicators help people develop an understanding of social

problems and make informed decisions.

 Mass media
What is Visual Communication?

 Visual communication is the communication

of ideas through the visual display of
information.

 Primarily associated with two dimensional

images, it includes: art, signs,
photography, typography, drawing, colour
and electronic resources or digital image
Image and imagination

 We live in a world of things seen a world that

is visual, and we expend much of our physical
and emotional energy on the act of seeing.

 Images help shape our perceptions of the

world and of ourselves.

 The most of us receive more than 80%

percent of our information through our eyes.
Image

 Images shape our societies. We

communicate through image

 We can find them :on billboards, in

newspapers and magazines, on film screens
and television screens, in our snapshots of
children, friends and relatives, in the
paintings of the wall, on different products ,
in every part of our life
Image
 Visual communication is a central aspect of our lives and
much of this communication is done indirectly through
symbolic means by words and signs and symbol of all
kinds.

 Our emotional states and our creative impulses need some

kind of visual and symbolic expression to develop and
maintain themselves, which explains why many
organizations pay so much attention to visual phenomena
such as costumes and uniforms, symbolic objects, signs,
flags and portraits and statues of important figures….
Image
LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE
imagination

 Imagination exist in the mind

 Image is often a product of imagination

 Visual image help us discover things

 Imaginations refers to the remarkable power

our mind have to form a mental image of
something unreal.
The visual and the psyche
 Images have the power to reveal our mental states.
 Sigmund Freud described the psyche as being two
part : consciousness
 unconsciousness

 ID -drives, impulses
 Ego- balances, use defence mechanism, knowledge of
reality
 Superego/conscience, guilt aspiration, focus and
direction
Read and understand the image

 We can read and understand the image on

four different levels

 Literal: What we see in this image

 Textual: Where the image fits in the text
 Inetertextual : similar images called to mind
from other text
 Mythic: relation to myths and legends
Conclusion

 What communication does is not transfer

information from sender to receiver but strike
a responsive chord in people using
information already stored in the mind of the
receiver
History of visual
communication
The Cro-Magnons -Homo sapiens

 The Cro-Magnons
form the earliest known European examples
of Homo sapiens, from ca. 40,000 years ago

 When they arrived in Europe about 40,000

years ago, they brought with them
sculpture, engraving, painting, body
ornamentation and music
History of visual communication
 Surviving Cro-Magnon
artifacts include huts, cave
paintings, carvings

 The remains of tools

suggest that they knew
how to make woven
clothing.

 They had huts, constructed

of rocks, clay, bones and
branches
History of visual communication

 These early humans

used colors and to
paint pictures and may
have created the first
calendar around 15,000
years ago.

 The first
communication was
smoke signals
History of visual communication
 17,000 to 12,000BC

 In paleolit the man

engraved line on the bone.
 Primary need of a man is to
get in order its confusing
environment and sent a
massage
 When man created line in
the same direction he made
the rhythm and composition
Example:
Drawing on deers bones from
 It was his first artistic
Logeria impression
Dordonja ,France)
History of visual communication

 Next lines he made were

crossed lines, zig zag
lines and finally he made
the first geometry shape -
rhomboid
 It was the beginning of art
 It was the beginning of
geometric style
Example:
Drawing on deers bones
from Logeria
Dordonja ,France)
Cave Paintings

 Cave or rock paintings

are paintings painted
on cave or rock walls
and ceilings.
 40,000 years ago.
 It is widely believed
that the paintings are
the work of respected
(Lascaux, France). elders or shamans.
Cave Paintings

 The most common

themes in cave
paintings are
large wild animals,
such as bison, horses,
deer, and human
hands as well as
abstract patterns
 (Lascaux, France).
Cave Paintings- human hands

 Way did they paint

animals?
 Why did they do that?
 Why did they have a
need for it?
 They were painting
as part of ritual or not
?
Cave Paintings
Drawings of humans are rare and are usually schematic
strong bull, death man and the bird- The bird symbolize his soul.
Petroglyphs

 Petroglyphs are
images incised in rock,
usually by prehistoric,
especially Neolithic,
peoples.
Petroglyphs
 They were an
important form of
pre-writing
symbols, used in
communication
from approximately
10,000 B.C. to
modern times,
depending on
culture and location.
Petroglyphs
Is it possible that the similarity of petroglyphs from different cultures and
continents is a result of the genetically inherited structure of the human
brain ?????
Geoglyphs

 Geoglyphs are
drawings on the
ground, or a large
motif, (generally
greater than 4 metres)
or design produced on
the ground,(stones,
stone fragments,
gravel or earth)
Geoglyphs

 The largest
geoglyph is
the Marree Man
in South Australia.
Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and
Pampas de Jumana
However, there is not much extant evidence concerning 'why' the figures
were built, so the Nazca's motivation remains the lines' most persistent
mystery. Most believe that their motivation was religious, making images
that only gods could see clearly.
Pictograms

 A pictogram or pictograph is a symbol

representing a concept, object, activity, place
or event by illustration. Pictography is a form
of writing where by ideas are transmitted
through drawing.
 They were used by various ancient cultures all
over the world since around 9000 BC.
Pictograms

 Pictograms are still in

use as the main
medium of written
communication in some
non-literate cultures in
Africa, The Americas,
and Oceania, and are
often used as simple
symbols by most
contemporary cultures
ideograms
 An ideogram or ideograph is
a graphical symbol that
represents an idea. The term
"ideogram" is commonly
used to describe logographic
writing systems such as
Egyptian hieroglyphs and
Chinese characters.
However, symbols in
logographic systems
generally represent words or
morphemes rather than
pure ideas.
Logograms- Chinese Calligraphy
 A logogram, or logograph, is a
single grapheme which
represents a word

 A Chinese character is a
logogram used in writing
Chinese, Japanese and Korean .
 Its possible precursors appeared
as early as 8000 years ago, and
a complete writing system in
Chinese characters was
developed 3500 years ago in
China, making it perhaps the
oldest surviving writing system.
Japanese calligraphy
 A knowledge of calligraphy
is an important step in the
understanding of Japanese
culture.

 Calligraphy began to filter

into Japan during the
seventh century A.D.
Buddhism from India had
travelled via China and
Korea and was making
many converts in Japan
Islamic caligraphy
Cuneiforms

 Over five thousand

years ago, the people
dwelling in southern
Iraq, the Sumerians,
invented one of the
world's earliest
systems of writing
 Clay and reeds were
chosen as the standard
medium of writing
Hieroglyphics

 Egyptian hieroglyphs
are a writing system
used by the Ancient
Egyptians, that
contained a
combination of
logographic,
alphabetic, and
ideographic elements
 5.000 BC
The Art of the Book
 An illuminated manuscript
is a manuscript in which the
text is supplemented by
the addition of decoration
or illustration, such as
decorated initials, borders
and miniatures. In the
strictest definition of the
term, an illuminated
manuscript only refers to
manuscripts decorated
with gold or silver.
The Art of the Book

 The earliest surviving

substantive
illuminated
manuscripts are from
the period AD 400 to
600, primarily
produced in Ireland,
Italy and other
locations on the
European continent.
 The Book of Durrow, Ireland, 7th century
The Art of the Book
 Art historians classify
illuminated manuscripts
into their historic periods
and types, including (but
not limited to): Insular
script, Carolingian
manuscripts, Ottonian
manuscripts,
Romanesque
manuscripts and Gothic
manuscripts.
the printing press

 Johannes Gutenberg
(1398 – 1468) was a
German goldsmith and
inventor
 movable type
 metal typography 
 the printing press
metal typography
Albrecht Duerer 
(1471 – 1528)
 He was a German
painter, wood carver,
engraver, and
mathematician. 
woodcuts
Manuel graphic

 woodcut, engraving,
etching, lithography,
 Screen Printing