In the 15th century, gathering knowledge and news via text became mainstream through printed books and newspapers. It took about 500 years for these texts to be aided or replaced by visual communication.

Visual communication conveys ideas, knowledge, thoughts, and information through graphical or visual means.

It is mainstream nowadays.

By interacting through visualizations, we can easily capture viewers’ attention and explain our cause. It is simpler, better, and more convenient than traditional “text-based” content.

Visual communication can include images, videos, infographics, graphs, data visualization, illustrations, memes, GIFs, etc.

visual communication

Visual Communication – A Brief History

Although visual communication began engaging viewers drastically since the prominence of the Internet, interacting through visualization is ancient.

Humans started writing through cave drawings and symbols. We are designed to understand and learn better through graphical means.

It’s easier to view a picture than to read a paragraph about it. 62% of internet users prefer watching videos for information.

Last year, more than 50% of brands used Live videos on their social media platforms. Facebook users spend more than 70% of their time on the app, watching videos.

There is a lot of content battling to grab the user’s attention. About 90% of the information stored in our brain is visual.

And it just goes on. Every research and information we gathered pointed out the immense significance of Visual Communication.

“We can never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.”

J. Berger (1926)

Why Visual Communication Is Important

We are visual beings, and various research has proven that there’s no other medium that comes close to visual communication.

It’s harder to read a letter, much easier to converse on a telephone, but amazingly easy to interact on video calls.

Excellent visualization of your visions can take your brand from mediocrity to brilliance.

   

And below, we have conjured some of the best reasons why you should be using visual communication:

1. It Establishes A Direct Approach

Imagine a tournament and a cluster of data about the upcoming matches and teams’ losses and wins.

It’s hard to keep track of all the details textually. It’s even harder to explain and even more challenging to understand.

But once you visualize this data into a single tournament bracket format, even a child can sort out all the details just from looking at a simple picture of the play-offs chart.

visual communication

Visual communication helps us to utilize the use of graphs and charts in our images and videos. It becomes easier to digest and recall the facts we learn through visual elements.

Take a look at an organizational chart below:

visual communication

Just by one look, you can tell who is whose boss. Do you think it would be easier to know more promptly if it weren’t for graphs and charts?

2. It Presents Flexibility To Your Projects

Imagine you’re running an ad campaign spread around the globe among people who belong to different cultures and speak varied languages.

It becomes easier to convey your cause if you show them an image or infographic. Or a video animation.

You can deliver your message more persuasively to a diversified audience.

3. It Helps To Grab The Attention Of Your Target Audience

As technology evolves, people tend to become more impatient. Soon will be an era of audio and video books. People are moving towards the snippet form of information in a graphical format.

In simpler terms, we want straightforward facts. Knowledge is hard to contain and even harder to convey. If it can be explained easily, it should be explained easily.

For example, two of your friends sent you an invitation, which one are you more likely to read first.

visual communication

or

“Hello, friend,

Jennifer and I are getting engaged on May 7, 2020, from 10 am onwards at Any City Garden, 123 Anywhere St.

Please RSVP your presence.

4. Communicating Through Visuals Makes An Impact

Remember the last time you were in a presentation or seminar.

The presenter (or host) who uses just texts in his powerpoints grabs little to no attention. For most of us, that would be boring.

The best presentation involves significantly less text with lots and lots of illustrations, graphs, charts, and even videos.

No one remembers those monotonous lectures where the professor just chalks words on the blackboard.

No one likes that kind of a teacher.

   

Do you remember your favorite teacher from school? They probably were very visual.

Explaining and teaching through gestures and visual cues.

Visual communications impact people’s thought processes and can influence grand changes.

5. Graphics And Visuals Can Increase The Credibility Of Your Brand

If you have a brand, it is essential to have a brand design.

This is 2021, and people don’t trust a company without a logo, brand colors, and a brand identity.

Several infographics that share the same or similar design that follows a uniform set of brand colors are proven to establish trust with your viewers.

You can definitely grab someone’s attention by a one-liner or perhaps a jingle. But a short and sweet video about your brand or product can get you a significant advantage.

Types Of Visual Communication

Let’s take a look at some of the different types of visual communication we’re talking about.

1. GIF

Graphics Interchange Format (a GIF) can add humor to an otherwise dull written content. It can lighten the seriousness and can quickly engage viewers.

You can use GIFs to give small segmented instructions of your product or services to your users.

2. Animation

A nicely made animated video has the power to describe an incomprehensible concept to its viewers. It can engage viewers effectively and help them gulp down a difficult-to-understand notion relatively quickly.

Animated videos or graphics are not easy to make. You can hire a good video production agency like What a Story.

Once you start to utilize its power, there is no coming back.

3. Whiteboard Animation

Popular among how-to guides are whiteboard animated videos.

During the covid period, these videos gained astonishing popularity among schools and students.

Teachers love them because students learn faster from them.

And they will be here for a very long time.

4. Screen Recording

Most tech (or even non-tech) videos on YouTube are screen recordings. It is significantly easier to learn something by watching someone else doing it first.

Screen recordings (edited) are a favorite choice for people aiming to learn or fix something.

5. Images

Pictures can indeed tell stories. And several social media platforms are benefiting from this truth.

Instagram made more than $20 billion in USD by letting its users share images to communicate with their friends and fans.

6. Infographics

Infographics are a great tool to feed complex data and quantitative information, which is tough to describe without cramming numbers to your audience.

Charts and Graphs are used to quickly comprehend data and information.

Their easy-to-digest nature makes them one of the most effective tools in offices since the nineteenth century.

7. Data Visualisations

Data Visualisations take Infographics to a level further.

It utilizes enormous data sets, which are otherwise near impossible to understand, and compiles them to an easy-to-understand format. Here is an example for you:

8. Powerpoint Presentations

It is a collection of text, images, gifs, and videos alongside infographics used to explain a concept or an idea to the audience.

Microsoft gifted us this ingenious tool, which is prominent in offices since the 1990s.

Google and Apple have created their own versions of powerpoints. These traditional tools still keep the throne of visual communication.

9. Video Communication

Face-to-face video calling is now the favorite meeting type. People find it comfortable to talk to their peers or clients through zoom meetings, skype, and other video calling platforms.

Many vloggers, reviewers, and celebrities use videos to communicate with people.

How To Use Visual Communication

If done correctly, visual communication can bring color to your identity as a brand or an influencer.

Whether you’re a CEO, graphic designer, marketer, or simply running a meme page on Facebook, you have the power to utilize visual communication. Let your audience know that you’re in business.

Here are few tips that can help you employ visual communication correctly:

1. Make Your Visuals Colorful

People retain 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, and 70% of what they hear and see.

But they will not see it twice unless they find it interesting.

Use the proper color schemes if you are using images and infographics. It is wise not to annoy users with random and flashy colors.

Consider reading about color psychology and find out which colors fill you best.

2. Use Icons And Fitting Illustrations

Use proper and stylized icons that go with your key-points. For example, using a cart icon instead of the text “Add to cart” can attract more eyes and clicks.

Take it from successful brands like Facebook.

Icons get attention and make your content easy to look at and save virtual space in your viewport (screen), which is exceptionally beneficial for mobile devices.

Icons must follow the same style and design. Font-awesome and feather-icons are some of the best and open source icon providers.

3. Use Visual Analogies

It’s always best to analyze your audience and create visuals that appeal to them. You can use visual analogies to describe the relationship between the words and pictures (or videos).

People react more positively to images that make them comfortable. They would more likely trust your visual if they can relate to it

Choose a graphic design that will resonate with your audience.

If your visual presentation is unique and comfortable to look at, you will gain an edge over your competitors.

4. Simplify Complicated Information With Visuals

Perhaps visual communication is the easiest way to simplify a complicated process.

Have a look at this tweet from HubSpot.

visual communication

With just one simple visual, they have marketed their product as a perfect solution to three different problems experienced among various teams.

You can simplify complicated information by:

  1. Removing as much text as possible.
  2. Using shapes and visual elements in your graphics.
  3. Using colors and size to attract eyes
  4. Using lines to resemble relationships and connections.

5. Use The Right Charts And Graphs For Your Goals

When visualizing your data, the first thing to consider is what visual form will best express your insight.

There might be a specific goal you have in mind. It can be informing your target audience. Or comparing similarities and differences among various data.

Or showing a change that you have envisioned for the future.

Whatever your needs are, there is a perfect chart type waiting for you.

For example, pictograms are better suited to show risks and communicating dangers.

visual communication

Pictograms are like bar charts, but instead of bars, they use icons and pictures.

Whereas bar charts are better suited to organize and display much larger data sets and highlighting the comparisons.

6. Tell A Story To Inspire Your Audience

Sometimes a graph or chart is just not enough.

A creative combination of visuals, texts, statistics, and a story can anchor your cause to the audience’s minds and hearts.

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Storytelling is the salt to your simple infographics. It can bring narrative and personality to the visual you want to communicate with your public.

7. Show Process In The Form Of Hierarchy Or Tree Diagrams

Break down the process you want to explain in your visual into segments of information that can be converted into visual elements.

It makes a huge difference.

It helps you communicate complicated or high-level concepts into digestible pieces of information.

This Is A Game Changer

Imagine reading through an article of this length without accompanied by visual hints and information. Most of us would turn away and move to something more interesting than this.

But you read through it (didn’t you?)

It’s without a doubt how Visual communications prove to be radical in the evolution of digital interactions. There is nothing more persuasive than visuals when accompanied by a distinct vision.

Always stick to your brand design and be consistent unless otherwise is demanded by the ongoing trends.

There are various tools you can employ to utilize the full benefits of visual communication. It can be graphics, or infographics, or videos. Choose one or all that fits your needs best.