Free VCE Visual Communication Design Flashcard Review

Communication design, environmental design, industrial (object/product) design and interactive design. Designers work within one or more of these fields, each with its own conventions, methods and visual language.

The client, audiences/users, suppliers, teams, sponsors and subcontractors (also specialists, managers and employees). A stakeholder is any individual, group or organisation with an interest in the design project.

Dieter Rams was a German industrial designer (chief designer at Braun) who in the 1970s proposed ten principles of good design — e.g. good design is innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, honest, long-lasting, thorough, environmentally friendly and as little design as possible.

Good Design Australia is the national body that promotes design and runs the Australian Good Design Awards, judging entries against criteria such as good design principles, design innovation and design impact — providing a recognised local benchmark for 'good design'.

Legal obligations are enforceable requirements such as copyright, intellectual property law and contracts; ethical obligations are moral responsibilities such as honesty, cultural respect and sustainability that may go beyond what the law strictly requires.

Intellectual property is the legal ownership of creations of the mind — including designs, logos, images and text — protected through mechanisms such as copyright, trademarks and registered designs, giving the owner control over how the work is used.

Circular design rejects the linear 'make–use–dispose' model and instead keeps materials in use by designing outcomes that are durable, adaptable, repairable, refurbishable, repurposable or reusable, and that help regenerate natural systems.

Technological, economic, cultural, environmental and social factors. These shape the tools designers use, what is commercially viable, the meanings audiences read, sustainability demands and the needs and values of communities.

Practices change as technologies emerge (e.g. digital tools, AI), economic and market conditions shift, cultural values evolve, environmental pressures grow and social expectations change — so past, present and future practices in a field differ.

Visual language is the combination of design elements and principles a designer uses to communicate meaning; each field has characteristic conventions (e.g. a typographic system for communication design, drawing conventions for industrial design) that distinguish its outputs.

Point, line, shape, form, tone, texture, colour and type. Elements are the basic visual building blocks a designer manipulates to create meaning and aesthetic impact.

Figure-ground, balance, contrast, cropping, hierarchy, scale, proportion, pattern, repetition. These principles govern how the elements are arranged and combined for effect. (Nine named principles — figure-ground through repetition.)

Figure-ground is the visual relationship between a subject (figure) and its surrounding space (ground), allowing the eye to separate the focal object from the background; it can be stable, reversible or ambiguous.

Hierarchy is the ordering of elements to show their relative importance and guide the viewer's eye. It is created using size/scale, contrast, colour, placement and weight so the most important information is noticed first.

Scale is the size of an element relative to other elements or to its context; proportion is the relationship of sizes between the parts of a design and the whole. Scale compares to a reference; proportion concerns internal part-to-whole relationships.

Visual language communicates ideas and information to audiences or users by combining design elements and principles to create meaning, direct attention, evoke a response and reflect the purpose, context and audience of the design.

An aesthetic decision is a deliberate choice a designer makes about the design elements and principles (e.g. colour palette, type, balance) to shape the look, feel and communication of a design example for its audience.

Because the effectiveness of a design is judged by how well its visual choices suit why it was made (purpose), where/when it is encountered (context) and who it addresses (audience) — analysis explains these relationships, not just describes the look.

Compare the examples systematically: identify purpose, context and audience; describe the design elements and principles used; consider methods/media/materials; examine influencing factors; then evaluate effectiveness against conceptions of good design using design terminology.

Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver — based on the Double Diamond model. Discover and Develop are divergent (opening) phases; Define and Deliver are convergent (closing) phases.