Read Stage 6: Communication 141-168
This chapter explains the importance of communication and explores the different methods we, as designers, can use to prepare successful presentations. According to the author, "Communicating a message through media has three basic phases or moments" (Aspelund 142). These phases are encoding, in which the message is created using standard and conventional methods, the message itself, which strictly deals with just form and content, and finally decoding, in which the audience is called upon to interpret.
Because designers communicate with a lot of people, it is important that we learn to understand our audience. Aspelund breaks down the different types of audiences, Client, Corporations, Manufactoring, Associates. These all require that we use different languages to communicate, however, the one element that remains the same is that we must be clear and straight to the point. I'm learning this first hand in class. If I don't stop and think about what I'm going to say and just start trying to get a point across oftentimes I start rambling on and then end up confusing people even more. When I take a moment to gather my thoughts and decide which words I need to use so that my audience (classmates) follow my train of thought, I end up with better results.
The rest of the chapter breaks down different methods and techniques for presentations. I found this to be the most interesting portion because in school, I have to a lot of presentations and learning new ways to present my work can be extremely useful. The author mentions a few traditional methods like illustrating using pencils, colored pencils, markers, and a few new methods that are frequently being used now like CAD programs, photoshop and websites. I never thought of using websites, but it makes sense that it would be the easiest way to present your work if you can't be there in person and it can be updated frequently which allows you to keep tweaking and making final adjustments.
As communication is such a big part of being a designer, I'm really glad that Aspelund decided to make this a separate stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment