Visual communication

This thesis will explore the vital importance of empathy on the part of graphic designers when creating information graphics. Today’s over-mediated public expects a rich user experience that is emotionally engaging, and multi-sensory by nature. To meet the public’s need, graphic designers must accept the cognitive responsibility to be empathetic to the viewers’ relationship to the information, and not just the surface issues of form, media, and content.

Ultimately, these verses are reflections of paintings (not necessarily paintings made with brush and oil, but paintings created by Nature, memory, and so forth). Each poem is also a painting and each painting is also a poem in the sense that the poetry should work the way a painting does by presenting a vivid image and idea. In every case, one has stemmed from the other. I want to translate the visual arts into writing, which includes the visual art of imagination because images are my natural language. These verses are an attempt at intermixing the categories (language and image), transferring one category into the other and vise versa to make the language act as a painting would; a painting with occasional narration.

Gaze to discover is the approach a viewer should take as s/he encounters the work within this exhibition. The main idea is that the work should be interactive. Developing this interaction is the objective of each piece. To engage viewers to interact with a piece of art coincides with the ability to acquire their undivided attention. The realization that it is difficult for a viewer to have a tangible interaction with artwork in a gallery setting leads to asking the viewer to interact visually, "to look fixedly" - to gaze (Webster's Dictionary). Gazing at the work will direct the viewer to discover; "to gain knowledge through observation, study, or search" (Webster's Dictionary). The desired outcome is a personal relationship with each piece observed. Games, play, and visual interaction are what this installation addresses. The familiar vessel forms chosen draw the attention, but the alliteration imagery keeps the viewer intrigued. With the help of a game card, a viewer is left with a puzzle to solve only obtainable through the gaze to discover.