Research, Tone of Voice, Legibility and Visual Hierarchy

What makes visual communication legible?

There are many things that need to be considered in visual communications when trying to speak to certain audiences, but legibility is an important factor that needs to be considered no matter what the audience is. Is it clear? Are we able to understand it? A lot of things need to be kept in mind when deciding whteher work is legable or not. Text has to be thought into greatly, depending on certain things and is generally one of the main things that needs to be clear in visual communications.

Titles usually describe the content and therefore have to give a clear message on the subject. One of the things that needs to be considered is the technology that is being used .i.e. a computer, a prejector or just on paper. For example, if a projector is the technology used then large headings with clear space and font can be very legible since projectors are generally used for larger audiences, where some members further away may struggle to find the text clear.

Font, space, size.etc. must be considered in all types of text and not just headings. Such as the allignment of the text; when text is broken up, rather than being in one connected paragraph, is becomes much clearer and is much easier to understand.

Colour effects legibility in any ways aswell. More often than not, choosing colours that contrast with eachother brings out the text and makes it much clearer and more visible (this is usually black, or any other dark colour, on white). Colours such as yellow on white or red and green makes text extremely difficult to see and becomes more difficult to understand.

 When text is used with images, the content can become illegible in some ways. Such as text placed over images. This usually becomes visually confusing and much less visible. When trying to give a clear message about the subject, it can also be a bad idea to make the image more overpowering than the text.

David Carson has a unique graphic design style. His designs are very chaotic whilst still having structure. Typically, the way he lays out his designs would be illegible, however, the layout, space, colour.etc. is still clear and easy to understand, for the most part.