Increasing Cultural Awareness for Effective Global Communica ...
Abstract
Visual communicators and design educators must engage in a global dialogue of design to differentiate between universally valid aesthetic principles and assumed truths from predominant design and marketing traditions. There is an identifiable shift in global communication to a homogenous design style imposing western cultural semiotics and structure on other cultures without thought to appropriateness or effectiveness. Four points are specifically discussed that together provide an easy-to-use, preliminary checklist for any designer when creating visual communication targeting a culture or subculture other than one’s own. These points each reference the way in which the reader engages in a piece of visual communication, focusing on traditional print with reference to the needs of other mediums. These considerations include research into color symbolism, the weight of a page in relation to a language's script, and visual cues of Collectivist vs. Individualist cultures and subcultures.