The Contribution of Graphic Design Education to Literacy

Abstract

The development of technology provides a prosperity in hardware and software capacities which is necessary to play an effective part of visuals into educational environment. Nowadays it is possible to encourage the participation of visual materials to processes with almost unlimited opportunities. Today's rich information world requires for more visual literacy skills increasingly. Instructors and education designers are dependent to visual elements to communicate. Even at a period which is very easy to access visual design tools, it may not be a natural talent for many people to use the visuals effectively. In such circumstances it is inescapable of education designers receiving help from graphic designers. Although "An image is worth a thousand words" is a true approach, knowing the factors which makes this image's effectiveness weak or strong is also important. Since there are so many rules of communication concepts at education world, computer terms world and design world, it is impossible not getting confused. In this paper with simplifying perception principles, reflections to graphic design will be evaluated. Connections between education and communication especially relationships with visual communication concept will be emphasized. Visual communication has definitely an important role while forming educational programs and transforming education institutions which trainers use as a base into educational models. Pedagogues have been complaining of teacher's being addicted to words as the communication tool since the earlier stages of education system. In fact, features of visual elements which make them easy to remember with revealing complicated situations, provide to take the place of words. It is a known fact that messages coded with visual elements are installed into student's memories and live there quite a while.