Design needs to make use of codes in order to form communication, whether it follows traditional codes or breaks them it is still making an association with certain values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions and practices held by the reader. A lot of these values are not controlled by the reader, but rather by social and cultural beliefs.

A lot of the theory on catagorising codes within visual communication is still very divided, with most theorists holding a different point of view on what codes and sub-codes should be grouped.

The dominant groups of codes found in design, as I see them, are medium, type, space, colour, time, image and sound. These codes can be further broken down in to many sub-codes. I have briefly explained how these codes work below. I use the term reader to describe the audience, whether they are viewing, hearing or reading the communication.

Medium: the medium, or material, that the design is applied to carries just as much, if not more, meaning that the actual design. Readers have associations with specific mediums and set expectations of how they should function, interact with as well as read. Marshall McLuan argued that the medium contained all of the meaning in his book, The medium is the message.

Type, space, colour and time: these all help to make up the structural elements of design and can be altered to bring meaning through historical, genre and social class (etc) assumptions.

Image: image, or photography, is also a structural element but within an image several sub-codes can be found by analysing everything from the subject, to the lighting, to the angle. If the subject is a person then there are codes such as body language, facial expression, posture, physical appearance, etc, that all mean something to the reader.

Sound: although not traditionally associated with graphic design, sound has become a popular element in communication design with the use of motion graphics and multimedia. As with image, sound remains a structural element in the design, but contains many sub-codes. The style, sound, volume, rhythm, beat etc all contain meaning for the reader.

Tony Fry notes that even though products that may be cheap to produce and sell from a monitory point of view (such as many computers) their actual costs are quite high when the pollution, disposal and other associated attributes are taken in to consideration. As Tony states, design is never finished, what ever the design is, it keeps on designing its state of being throughout its life cycle.

A lot of my work is web site design, which to an extent is environmentally friendly, as it’s a method of mass communication that doesn’t require large print runs, and the disposal of the work is simply a matter of deleting it. However even these jobs have sustainability concerns, for example the power source which runs the computer hardware may or may not be from a sustainable source, and the actual computer that hosts the website may have large costs when it comes to pollution and disposal.It is nice to find a design studio that supports sustainability in what they produce.

Thomas Matthews is a relatively small design studio in London that creates some fantastic work and have an established design philosophy that supports sustainability. Design is integrated with community; it shapes the artificial environment and contributes to the well being of humans. It is therefore essential that designers consider sustainable solutions.

(republished from 2005)

Audience interpretation of the meaning of design (visual communication) has only recently begun to be researched. Most of the theory has therefore been based on literature and communication research, as these theories can be applied to visual communication as well as written communication.

As designers, is what we consider ‘good’ design really that good, and is what we consider ‘bad’ design really that bad? As an exploration of this idea I recently examined magazine design, looking at examples from the down-market that break the traditional rules of design aesthetics, and from the up-market that usually reflect a traditional educated designed approach.

I wrote a 5500 word research essay on the topic but here is the general conclusion I’ve drawn from it: In recent times the mass consumption of products has stretched to include the consumption of information. With the rise of digital technology, this abundance of information has even more ways to reach consumers, with magazines being only one of these mediums. All of this information competes for consumer attention, and because there is so much available, the information needs to communicate with consumers quickly in order to be successful.

The fastest way to attract consumer attention is through the use of aesthetic codes. Design needs to make use of codes in order to communicate; whether it follows traditional codes or breaks them, it is still making an association with certain values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions and practices held by the reader. A lot of these values are not controlled by the reader, but rather by social and cultural beliefs. Because there is so much information competing for consumer attention, these codes need to be tailored to the demographic, and this is why there is such a variety in the style of magazine design: because they appeal to completely different audiences.

This is the new trend in design in the post-modern era. Design has to identify with its demographic through the use of these codes that are common among certain sectors of society. Magazines seem to have a specific aesthetic defined for a specific demographic, be that a class or sub-culture. Due to the amount of magazines produced now, one magazine cannot reach a wide demographic because too many specialised magazines already exist targeting a specific market and successfully reaching them. It’s interesting to consider how true this is in other design mediums, where once a certain saturation point is reached, they need to zone in on one particular type of reader and therefore lose the ability to appeal to a mass market.

Each magazine analysed, whether from the down or up-market, reflects modern theory on post-modern design and has proven its design works through figures reflected in sales. So while many designers would consider magazines such as That’s Life! poorly designed according to traditional theories, current post-modern theory suggests otherwise. In fact, all of the magazines analysed are successfully designed in order to meet financial targets. However, if design is responsible for helping to shape and change society then perhaps magazines such as That’s Life! are not so well designed?