This week seems to be all about visual thinking. I started this morning by looking at logo options from my brilliant friend Jessica Krewson of Design Krew as we begin my web and company redesign, and this week's read is A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel H. Pink.
It does seem that visual thinking and learning is every bit as important as literacy these days. As Ken Robinson said in the video I featured a little while back, we have no way of knowing what the future will look like even five years from now.
We encounter more visual material today than ever. As far back as 2006, sources were estimating that the ads we encountered on a daily basis numbered in the thousands, especially for television watchers. But internet usage can more than make up for that, if you're in front of the computer all day- I know this!
So what does all this mean? Visual literacy is essential in today's world. Information is being conveyed to us through visual communication just as much as through written. Video is becoming the medium of choice, as YouTube becomes a sort of how-to serach engine. Given the choice, we'd all rather be shown than told, right?
As Daniel Pink explains in A Whole New Mind, we have long been on a left-brain/logical thinking bias. We believed at one point- over 100 years ago, granted, that the right brain had very little to do with our effective functioning. But now we see that it has everything to do with success nowadays. The right and visual brain sees the whole picture, synthesizes meaning from facial expressions, and understands things far more quickly than a supercomputer by pulling out the whole picture from all information available, especially emotional content.
Hmm. Starts to sound more like the world we are operating in now, doesn't it? As logical sequential routinized work gets moved overseas as these sorts of tasks can be simply trained and left to run along indefinitely, we are left to look at what kind of work is meaningful for us.
It is the visual, emotionally connected work that we need to engage in. Video allows us to communicate in a visual and personal fashion. If your business message is up on a brochure style website that doesn't allow for users to connect, engage, and that doesn't stimulate them visually and emotionally, everyone is missing out.
Who are you today? Who is your business? How can it be more high concept and high touch, and how can you put that concept out in a more meaningful way.
If these are new ideas, I highly recommend both Daniel Pink's book as well as the short video at the top of the post with Tom Wujec, where he talks about why images are an effective mode of processing information.
Where can you be more visual? Share your thoughts with us below...
Recent Comments