Anatomy of Visual Message

The process of creating a visual message can be described as a series of steps from a number of rough sketches probing for solutions to increasingly refined versions toward a final choice and decision. The key to perception lies in the fact that the whole creative process seems to reverse for the receiver of visual messages. First, he sees the visual facts, either information drawn from the environment which can be recognised, or symbols which can be defined.

On the second level of perception, the subject sees the compositional content, the basic elements, the techniques. It is an unconscious process, but through it is the cumulative experience of information input. If the original compositional intentions of the visual message-maker are successful that is, have been brought to a sound solution, the result is coherent and clear, a working whole. If the solutions are extremely successful, the relationship between content and form can be described as elegant.

With bad strategic decisions, the final visual effect is ambiguous. Aesthetic judgements involving words like "beauty" need not be involved at this level of interpretation, but rather left to a more subjective point of view. The interaction between purpose and composition, between syntactical structure and visual substance, must be mutually strengthening to be visually effective. Together, they represent the most important force in all visual communication, the anatomy of a visual message.

Simplicity of shape, in fact, simplicity, is a prime visual technique of the style. Flatness of rendition is also a frequently noticeable technique in primitive visual work, as are primary colours. The sum total of all these techniques is a kind of childlike quality in the primitive style, which has some importance to the synthesis of this style.

We judge the work of children and primitives as crude, but before we accept this judgement, we should reevaluate the work on the basis of its purpose. Appropriateness has great effect on any visual work, and the intensity and purity of this style should be given its due.