From Graphic Design to Visual Communication

Visual communication surrounds us every day – in newspapers and magazines, screaming from television screens, throughout in the internet, building our visual landscape with outdoor signage – with no escape from its influence. Graphic design and visual communication is a language that uses shape and color as tools to create signs, visual language and communication that transfer a variety of messages – provocative, funny, critical or seductive. Yet these signs are not innocent. They have multiple roles in society (from the Russian revolution through the contemporary ecological battles) and commerce (branding and marketing of global companies). For this reason, they not only reflect society and the spirit of the era in which they were created but also create a new ideology that influences our identity and the way we grasp ourselves and the world around us. The course will review the aesthetics of graphic design from various perspectives: historical, theoretical and cultural. Historical – Movements and trends in design as a social and cultural phenomenon, starting with modern design of the early 20th century through pop, and up to postmodern and contemporary design. Theoretical – The foundations of visual language, how it differs from the verbal language and tools for analyzing the language of design. Social and Cultural – The place of the graphic design in revolutions and socio-political struggles throughout the 20th century, graphic design and aesthetics as an expression of identity (personal, national, commercial) and the link between culture and design in the process of globalization (Web 2.0 Internet design).