Classification of visual signs of communications. Means of visual communication. Means of visual communication and the place of visual content in them

30.01.2022

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Classifications

Facilities

Visual communications are often used in advertising. Visual communication tools can be divided into groups:

Printed or polygraphic (booklets, posters, flyers and brochures, etc.).
TV screen (television programs, animation, graphic videos, etc.).
Means of outdoor advertising (billboards, signs on buildings, transit advertising, etc.).
Advertising media on the Internet (banners, flash-animations, etc.).

History of development

The first forms of visual communication were drawings and paintings on stone, bone, and clay. These were paintings and sculptures of deities and mythical creatures and scenes from real life. The participants in the communication process were both the contemporaries of the authors and their descendants, for whom these images are of historical and artistic value.

With the discovery of different forms of writing, images were accompanied by verbal texts, the possibilities of visual and verbal communication were combined. This process was developed after the invention and widespread use of paper and the improvement of printing processes.

In the Middle Ages, the technique of engraving became widespread. Thus, in visual static communication, several channels of artistic and cognitive communication are formed: pictorial, including small sculpture, architectural and urban planning, including large sculpture and outdoor advertising, print and design.

Visual communications in the twentieth century carried out a powerful expansion into all spheres of culture and fixed in the operational field such concepts as visual text, visual language, visual culture. Visual communications are one of the basic components of modern mass media that create a visual interface for the transmission and consumption of information, as well as transforming and translating, in turn, any information into a visual language (images and press portraits, photos from the scene and a television picture in real time...).

Professional communities

National Association for Visual Communications (NAVC)

Fund "Objective Reality"

The Objective Reality Foundation is a non-profit organization that has been working since 2001 in the field of developing visual communication and supporting the professional photographic community. The main goal of the Foundation's activity is to create the widest possible geographical, social and professional environment for socially significant photography and new media.

Interesting Facts

At the British Higher School of Design there is a separate training course for art directors "Visual Communications", during which students master the entire arsenal of tools for creating high-quality graphic design with in-depth knowledge from other areas (fonts, photography, advertising, marketing, branding, project management, communication when working with clients and within project teams, etc.)

A person receives information through all the channels available to him. But some of them have a special character for communication. This is primarily visual and verbal communication. Even Nietzsche wrote in his aphorisms: "People freely lie with their mouths, but the mug they make at the same time still tells the truth." These words quite accurately convey both the autonomous nature of the transmission of information through the visual channel, and the fact that we are not able to equally control the visual channel, as is done with the verbal channel.

It should be noted that visual communication also includes the visual appearance of a person, and not just his words. Experts write that your clothes can be very informative in relation to the story of your personality and your emotional adjustment to life.

According to the results of scientific research, it has been established that a person receives on average 70% of information through the eyes, 69% of the information read from the TV screen is visual communication.

Thus, the visual component dominates in communications between people, as well as between a person and a symbolic system. Visual perception is the most important for a person. It is divided into two stages: the collection of information at the physical level and the decoding of visual signals.

At the first stage, the human eye considers more information if the image is:

- contrast;
- large enough
- concise.

If the information is collected successfully at the first stage, it is sent for decryption and comparison with the existing database. In other words: “What a person sees is the result of a merger of visual impressions from an object and the counter activity of a person who sends clots of past experience towards this information, signified and meaningful, integrated into the general structure of human consciousness” .

For easy and quick decoding of information, visual communication should focus on:

- familiarity of images;
- easy to read fonts.

Every day, the amount of information around a person is growing at a tremendous speed. These redundant volumes of information are difficult to process both physically and psychologically. Therefore, a person is forced to choose from a huge amount of necessary information. In this situation, the advantage is obtained by simple and visual information, presented in an easy and accessible form.

The correct result of communication is influenced by many aspects, starting with the social status and mentality of the viewer, ending with the decision of the message itself.

Each message must inevitably be endowed with meaning and have a very tangible purpose. The designer, having the ultimate clarity of message goals, can easily find the right visual solution, and the owner of the advertised product or service will be able to more accurately track the results of campaigns. The lack of a holistic understanding of the meaning of communication with the consumer leads to dead-end decisions and often comes down to superficial "decoration" of advertising material (printed materials, websites, souvenirs). This applies to both designers and their clients - business owners.

Building an effective message (poster, banner ad, ad, web page) or communication system (company identity, promotion, supermarket navigation signs, etc.) begins with a thorough study of the target audience. The more information there is about the public to be addressed, the more accurately it will be possible to formulate the appeal, your idea for them. By using clear and simple images, you will convey the message to the mind of the target consumer, while weeding out unwanted ones.

The image that the viewer sees in the first moment should be emotionally saturated, it will arouse interest and force to study the message as soon as the opportunity presents itself, at this stage the target audience is screened out from the unwanted public. The information component is perceived by the viewer after the primary image has interested him. The slogan, headline or text message should be short and clear. All information in the message should be thought out for the sequence of perception.

Visual communication is a game, a game between a brand and a consumer. By means of visual images and sharp words, you dictate the rules of the game. The more honest and interesting this “game” is for the consumer, the more successful and effective it will be.

“The most important task of design and information graphics is to be more concise and understandable, to be read faster compared to textual information. In this case, we can talk about the effectiveness of visual communication and the creation of additional value with its help.

The means of visual communications are widely used in the institute of advertising. They overtake us everywhere: at the points of sale of the advertised product, on the streets, in public transport, at home, in cafes and cinemas, in newspapers and magazines. Their goal is to grab our attention. Visual communication is a deeply penetrating tool with a high degree of efficiency, so its popularity, when choosing marketing communication technologies, is great.

All means of visual communication can be divided into the following main groups:

· Printed (printing) means of visual communications: from a campaign poster and a bright election leaflet, to advertising calendars, picturesque brochures and colorful booklets at exhibitions and presentations;
· television-screen means of visual communications: from cinema (initially purely visual, silent) to the all-powerful monster-communicator of all times and peoples - television. These two types of art are the basis of the combat squad of game, animation, graphic videos and movie clips;
· means of visual communication used in outdoor advertising: from billboards (billboards) and stationary panels on buildings (firewalls) to light boxes and stretch banners;
· means of visual communications on the Internet: from the classics of the genre - banners, to flash-animation.

To create effective visual communication, it is necessary to professionally use a large arsenal of techniques from various disciplines:

fine arts (graphics, drawing, illustration);

photography (including collage art);

cinematography;

modern polygraphy;

design, including web design;

modern technologies (including digital, holography, video art, liquid crystals);

modern computer technologies (special programs);

We live in a visual-communicative, competitive world, the main value of which is information. Now not only manufacturing firms and those that provide services compete with each other - their information and image resource is fighting for spheres of influence on a potential consumer. It should be noted that social problems (information about them) also exist in the competition for the attention of society to themselves.

Visual communications - communications (transmission of information) through visual language (images, signs, images, typography, infographics) on the one hand and visual perception (organs of vision, psychology of perception) on the other.

"Visual communications", "communicative design" are quite new concepts in design. Signs of visual communication are created in accordance with the characteristics of the subject-spatial environment for which they are intended. Signs form an integral system with common semantic and graphic characteristics, which creates the need to introduce restrictions on the type of space.

In an everyday, vulgar sense, visual communication can be defined as what I see. However, today visual communication is extremely developed and complicated both at the level of language and at the level of perception due to the active development of visual art and electronic and digital technologies.

Visual communications in modern society are increasingly moving away from the role of a passive intermediary, "accumulating" codes and (especially in advertising) acquiring a pronounced manipulative character.

Visual communications carried out a powerful expansion into all spheres of culture and fixed in the operational field such concepts as visual text, visual language, visual culture. Visual communications are one of the basic components of modern mass media that create a visual interface for the transmission and consumption of information, as well as transforming and translating, in turn, any information into a visual language (images and press portraits, photos from the scene and a television picture in real time mode).

In visual communications, the results of the processes will be:

Sculpture, Design, Architecture (visual-object procedural type);

Graphics, Painting, Photography (visual-graphic procedural type);

Mechanics, Optics, Electronics (Visual-dynamic procedural type).

It should also be noted that such means of visual communications as theater, cinema, the Internet combine the properties of verbal and visual communications, so they can be attributed to the procedural-dynamic type of communications.

Based on the foregoing, the General system of visual communication can be described in the following scheme: Subject (Author) - Type of communication (Idea) - Type of communication (Process) - Result of communication (Object).

The communicative view of the visual-graphic system is built in the following chain: Author (Graphic designer) - Communicative view (Visual) - Process type (Visual-graphic) - Objective result (Graphics). It is also not difficult to build other visual communication systems.

However, it is necessary to define what visual communication is. Visual communication is a system of composite elements united by communication links. From this definition it follows that the process of designing visual communications consists of two main parts that make up the essence of design.

Rice. 1.1. General scheme of communication

Today, much attention is paid to the design of the environment space. One of the actual elements of space structuring is information carriers, signs of visual communication, representing various data to a person. Visual information systems cover a wide range of problems: they contribute to orientation, assessment of the aesthetic and emotional features of the surrounding space. Most of the studies of visual communications are devoted to the urban environment, but the problem of creating information blocks in the tourist environment, where it is also necessary, is not fully disclosed, it is required to identify the features of the introduction of information signs into the natural environment.

Photography, cinematography, television, print design, computer networks and their software - this is just an incomplete list of forms of social activity that generate what is currently commonly called a) "visuality", the spectacle of any object of reality, b) "visualization information", or the creation of an analogue of something or someone in a visual-visual form, c) "visual culture", examples of the human ability to image and visual communication, etc. In this series there is a place for the term "visual communication", which can be extremely generalized designate as the transfer / reception of any knowledge and information in the mode of direct display or transformation into a visual image.

The fact that visual communication today is becoming a powerful mental resource for social change is eloquently evidenced by many phenomena of Russian reality. So, over the past twenty years, our country has turned from the most reading in the world into a "society of TV viewers." Television has become the main channel of information for the majority of our citizens. At the same time, it functions as a system of commercial enterprises, the purpose of which is high profitability. To this end, not only the material and technical base of television broadcasting is being transformed and improved, but also the composition, structure and content of information resources. However, many Russians today use not only a TV, but also other screen devices: a personal computer, video equipment, a home theater, a portable player, a mobile phone - technical devices that turn visual communication into a purely individualized way to meet social needs.

Public means of communication, multimedia technologies for creating visual images and images, being visually recognizable fragments of reality, real or fictional, activate, first of all, various aspects of people's emotional experience, contribute to the development of stereotypes of identification with a particular social group. The perception and cognition of such information sometimes does without reduction to primary linguistic signs, verbal "equipment of the mind", which contributes to the formation of a person's ideas about the world around him and the forms of realization of his social activity.

The visual-spectacular information and communication content of the modern social space is a weighty reason for formulating the problem of visual communication as one of the specific resources of social identification.

To be perceived and competitive, information is presented in the form of emotional visual messages, which, in turn, form a visual text. Visual messages (texts), the carriers of which are: sign, poster, advertising card, label, packaging, video, visual presentation, etc. - "entwined" with a network of ideas, ideas, associations accumulated throughout the history of human existence. A significant place begins to be occupied by concepts and ideas that are not based on realistic, logical calculations-settings. Normativity, logocentrism, characteristic of the perception of a classical work, are not suitable for understanding a modern visual product, which, as a rule, has a multidimensional content and an orientation towards multilayered perception.

So, to the extent that the product of graphic design is a sign or sign system, and the quality of the message primarily depends on the quality of the sign, its creation/perception requires knowledge of the language and a sense of context. So, the visual language of graphic design as a sign system that provides the process of communication needs to be comprehended at the present stage of development.

Analysis of recent research and results. In the 1960s, one of the most popular socio-philosophical doctrines in the West was the communication explosion theory of the Canadian professor M. Mayupoen. In the history of the development of society, he identifies two major communication revolutions, the first of which began with Gutenberg's printing; the second marked by "electronic and electrical media" XX century. Reality or environment, behind the terminology of M. Mayupoen, is not what it is, but how youthfully designed and represented to a person by means of communication. In the 1990s, P. Rodkin, relying on M. Mayupoen, projects his own theory, considering graphic design as the basis for a new communicative revolution.

Already in the 1970s, O. Chernevich emphasized that the communicative function comes to the fore in graphics that serve pedagogy (optimal visualization of educational material), science (visual languages of mathematics, physics, logic), transport, etc.. The researcher predicts that with the development of science and technology, due to the information crisis and a number of other factors of the modern world, life in the future industrial society will be impossible without optimal information visualization.

In his monograph “The Language of Graphic Design”, analyzing Western concepts, in particular, L. Leizegant, who defines graphic design as “a strategy for visualizing abstract information”, O. Chernevich draws attention to which L. Leizegant understands graphic design as “an optimal strategy for processing information, which is itself neutral, in the direction of its specific interpretation”, and “the task of the designer becomes the transformation of information into visual signals that are interpreted unambiguously” . It is L. Leizegant who introduces and explains the definition of graphic design as a “functional” or “analytical communication strategy”.

Dwelling on the problem of visualization in graphic design, O. Chernevich emphasizes the need for the existence of a “visual setting”, the meaning of which lies in the fact that “it makes the installation object - the visual country of the world - important, significant, the one that makes sense”. "The visual setting gives the world to a person in the form of a text - this is its significance".

O. Chernevich considers the text as a semiotic concept: any object that is perceived and understood as a system of signs, explaining that “the material substance of the object-sign can be very different, and as a text in semiotics, written and oral language, sequence graphic or sculptural images, architectural complexes, musical phrases, household items, gestures, etc.” .

According to O. Chernevich, "a visual text, in fact, is any object that is perceived visibly and as a sign system." In her opinion, "both a match label, and a corporate identity, and a television screensaver, and a train schedule - all these are visual texts of varying complexity that carry a certain message and are guided by its visible perception" .

The design of the subject environment as a visual text contributed to the deepening of the value attitude towards it. She points out that “since design allows you to change the visual accounting of the world, the designer must be able to distinguish between visually significant and non-significant forms, and for this it is necessary to have, in addition to a visual setting, visual values. .

O. Chernevich notes that it is in this sense that design is usually understood as visualization, i.e. as a process of visual ordering of the world and combating visual chaos [ibid.]. “The entire objective world must have visual value!” - this is the slogan of professional design, declares O. Chernevich [ibid]. Per O. Chernevich, "a conscious attitude to design a text-message, system and environment as a visual text is a visual design" .

“The selection of visual text as an independent design object is primarily associated with applied graphics and graphic design,” the researcher makes a remark, “where a clear targeting of information is a necessary condition for normal work.”

She also draws attention to the fact that visual text can be not only an inscription, symbol, image, etc., but also a car, interior, street, if they are clearly oriented towards the consumer's visual installation. Pointing out that in relation to a set of individual texts, language is their system (code, invariant), the researcher distinguishes two categories of practical design: designing visual communications and designing a visual language as such, emphasizing a wide and tactful command of visual language, as far as a designer adheres to and develops the rules of linguistic behavior.

It is clear that the visual language of graphic design has its own structure, formed by a diverse, endless configuration of expressive language units. Although in the plastic arts it is quite difficult to single out the minimum discrete units, on the basis of which it would be possible to build an appropriate sign system. In the pictorial order, there are no clearly defined units that could be brought together once and for all in a specific catalog. For example, in graphic design (the latter is in the vicinity of image creation and design), a dot can mean both itself and many other things. Its meaning each time depends on the specific formulation of the problem, it is always contextual.

The fundamental difference between the visual language of graphic design and the language as such is the fatigue that graphic design does not have its own alphabet (a finite number of phoneme letters), as well as a finite number of words endowed with generally accepted meanings. their absence makes it much more difficult to comprehend his visual language as a system, a system of codes, where point, line, spot, texture, color in endless configurations form plastic messages. Regardless of the complexity of the invention of such a system, artists and philosophers (V. Kandinsky, L. Prieto, B. Kokula, K. Peyrut, etc.) tried to develop a plastic language with which one could “read” works of art.

Therefore, considering the visual language of graphic design as a communication system, let's turn to the key concepts: communication, communication, language, sign, message, text, in order to find out their specific characteristics in the context of graphic design tasks.

So, communication is one of the types of general directed communication. It is carried out with the help of signals, signs directed from one object to another, and finds its expression in communicative acts of a natural and social nature. Diverse in form, communication is basically the same - the essence of communication is the transmission of a message, while information does not own this immediacy. The communicative process can be either narrowly directed, when the information is intended for single information receivers, or broadly directed, when the transmission of a message is intended for many systems at the same time. A subset of receiving systems is involved in the process.

It should be emphasized that it is the multidirectional process of transmitting messages that is inherent in graphic design.

However, information exchange becomes possible only under conditions of significant non-identity of the information potentials of different systems. Moreover, such a difference should exceed the resistance of the information channel. The higher the advantage, the more intense the information flow. That is why graphic design is forced to constantly develop new visual stereotypes. Because, outdated, biased stereotype becomes the reason for the suspension of the information flow.

Communication is a tool of social management. This tool turns out to be universal and, manifesting itself in different ways, is an integral social formation, a universal mechanism of social interaction.

Thus, the visual language of graphic design is a tool of social management, and the better it is built, the higher the degree of usefulness.

Social communication is sometimes identified with the concept of communication. In the article “Art in the system of social communication”, V. Mitina, referring to M. Kagan, emphasizes that communication is a one-way connection, and communication is an intersubjective relationship, i.e. such activity of the subject, which is addressed to another subject, and not to the object. According to M. Kagan, the attitude towards another subject is drawn up on equal practices as material, practical communication of people in their common labor activity, and at the informational level - as spiritual communication. So, in the process of communication, what takes place is not the transfer to another of what you yourself know, but the general production of general ideas, ideals, views, etc., i.e. achievement by common efforts of a spiritual community.

The system of communication links not only covers personal channels of interaction between people, but also includes the continuity and transfer of values from one generation to another. According to O. Kazinov, "without an ordered, formalized and therefore limited discipline of communication, there is no possible community of people as participants in a real historical process."

Language is a tool and a universal means of communication. It is she who allows you to save and transfer the accumulated experience from one generation to another. Language is a means of storing and transmitting information, one of the ways to control human behavior. Accordingly, a visual language is such a language system that uses visual messages to transmit and store information, which are composed of specific discrete units (signs) combined into peculiar structures that have specific formal characteristics. The visual language of graphic design is a means of presenting information, where the quality of information is determined by a sign / system of signs.

A sign is a unit of a language system, an elementary component that preserves the features of the language system as a whole. According to the generally accepted understanding, a sign is a unity, a stable connection of a certain linguistic content and linguistic expressiveness, with the help of which the content can be expressed and retained in a sign. However, according to the thought of O. Chernevich, according to the fundamental unity of the plans of content and expressiveness in graphic design, any definition of a sign using these categories is tautological and carries nothing but a statement about the existence, differences and connections of these plans.

The visual message, to some extent, acts as the primary form of visual language. In graphic design, it is also a sign that has an unconditional primacy over meaning, and becomes separated from the real communication process and independent of its participants (the one who transmits and the one who receives). Thanks to the message, what is said becomes independent both of the author and the recipient, and of what is being said. Embodied in texts, messages create an open context, a boundless textual field, where each text is included in a kind of “mirror game”, referring to other texts, without the ability to understand which of them is primary.

For example, a poster is a classic visual message of graphic design, and an environmental poster exhibition is a visual text from this issue. The totality of exhibition events on environmental topics, their reflection in the press, television, and the Internet constitute a visual hypertext.

Today, the text is the entire socio-cultural reality, the text of symbols, signs, artifacts, where the leading place is occupied by texts built on visual media embodied in printing, multimedia products, on the screen. If a verbal description is characterized by the duration of perception, then in visual texts the content is close to the surface, it is visible, visualized. If in the 20th century the content of a sign in graphic design is almost unambiguous, and text is understood as an ordinary verbal text, then in the 21st century visuality is replacing the textual written cultural code.

Now we should consider the stages of the communication process and pay attention to their specific features in graphic design.

First stage: formulation of the information concept. In graphic design, it starts from setting a task and creating a concept, i.e.: what exactly and what information needs to be conveyed. At the same time, the designer must clearly understand the purpose of the message and its motivation, namely: why is it carried out and what should be achieved; understand the context (be aware of the relevance of the concept to a particular situation).

Second step: coding. He begins the process of sketching, which can be called the primary process of encoding information. As a result, the concept of communication is transformed into a visual message, where the visual message becomes the product of the information encoding process. The effectiveness of coding depends on the ability (talent) of the designer to turn information that is intended to be disseminated into expressive visual signs. Here, in addition to the talent of the designer, the degree of his awareness of information and the socio-cultural environment (context) is important. At this stage, the optimal channel for transmitting the message is best established. A communication channel is a means by which information is transmitted. The choice of a communication channel is influenced by such factors: the nature of the message that is being transmitted; the type of characters that are used to encode information; the weight and attractiveness of the channel for the addressee; specific advantages or disadvantages of one or another type of channel. To improve the effectiveness of communication, it is recommended to use two or more channels to transmit the same message. For example: printed advertising products and a set of banners on the site.

It should be pointed out that in graphic design, a visual message is a design object and a communication channel: logo, poster, label, packaging, etc.

Third stage: message transmission. It will be transmitted over the channel and represents the delivery of the message from the sender to the addressee. At this stage, the influence of obstacles is significant. Obstacles are anything that distorts the essence or content of a message. Noise almost always accompanies communications.

Noises in graphic design require separate consideration, however, it should be pointed out that this is, first of all, the context in which the message is perceived.

Fourth stage: decoding. Means shifting the received message into a form understandable for the recipient. When the characters chosen by the sender have the same meaning for the recipient of the message, when he understands what the sender meant. Sometimes the addressee interprets the essence and content of the message differently than the sender understood it.

In graphic design, this is a correct, undistorted perception of the information concept, which in practice is expressed in the choice of attractive packaging by the addressee, the reaction to an environmental poster, the desire to attend this or that other concert, to purchase a magazine; this is a planned reaction to an advertising poster, poster, motivation for buying, services, etc.

The final stage of communication: feedback. A process in which the sender and receiver switch roles. In the feedback process, the receiver informs the sender how he understood the content of the message. Of course, the presence of feedback increases the duration of communication, complicates the process, but increases its efficiency, provides confidence in the correct interpretation of the concept of communication.

Regarding graphic design, advertising agencies and marketers analyze the effectiveness of the message. They keep statistics on which channel works best, compare the information product with the original information concept, and determine the degree of mutual understanding. In general, the success of the message lies in the effectiveness of the information concept, a clear definition of the language strategy and context, and the successful choice of the transmission channel.

"Multimedia, - Russian scientists M. Lukina and I. Fomichova believe, - is the ability to transmit messages in different sign systems - verbal, graphic, sound, photo, video, animation." Those. information acquires new forms of display, storage, it is transformed into different digital formats. "The basis of modern multimedia systems is computer technology for combining informational text data, sound signals and images in digital formats, which helps to reproduce them in display, print or other display, storage, copying and transmission without loss of quality through various channels and networks of information high-speed communications" .

After analyzing all these definitions, we can come to the conclusion that a multimedia unit as such does not exist. Multimedia is an association, a combination of information units, which are visual, auditory and audiovisual content.

Visual content is formed by filling with visual content, this is the production and consumption of information in a visual form; the process of exchange, communication, communication between the addressee, channel and recipient at the level of visual receptors.

If we build a complete definition, then it will look like this: "Visual content is the information content of a mass communication medium (in our case, this is a web resource) expressed using a visual language: an image, signs, infographics, video, etc." . This content forms a new communication channel, which in the 20th century was called "visual communications". We should not forget about visual perception, which will play an outstanding role in this process.

Classification of visual content. There are many classifications of different types of information, however, two remain relevant for the definition of the concept of "visual content":

1. Behind the way of perception by a person. Depending on the way information is received, five types of information are distinguished: visual (or visual), auditory (or auditory), olfactory, gustatory, tactile.

2. According to the processing methods, information is divided into numerical, textual, graphic and sound.

Behind the nature of information, visual oblique can be commercial (banners, animations), entertaining (photography, illustration, and informational and infographics, video report) content, expressed in different formats at the same time. An example is the information and analytical portal ua.korrespondent.net. On the main page in the center - a logo with the site menu: on the right side - an advertising banner: a little lower - a multimedia section, placed in a separate display; on the left side - a photo of an important event of the day, etc.. This is a typical lowland of content, characteristic of the day of all information portals.

In the context of multimedia types in Internet journalism, researcher V. Ryabichev developed the following classification: Audio (WAV, MP3. RAM): Video (MPEG. AVI. MOV): Graphics: animation (GIF), image (JPEG). Flash presentations (a complex object developed in 1986 by FutureWave using vector graphics).

As you can see, the developer in his classification proceeded from the multimedia content format. Nevertheless, text is not mentioned here as part of multimedia, which B. Potatishik calls it in his multimedia hierarchy of formats, it has such text (supplemented with graphics and photos), video, audio. The scientist considers graphics and photos to be an addition to the text part, and not independent components of the media. From this it means that the visual content in its interpretation is the text that complements the illustration.

Let's give our classification of visual content formats: visual: text, infographics, photo, animation; audio: audio: audiovisual: video, animation, which is classified as both visual and audiovisual because it is sometimes accompanied by sound. Animation is created in GIF format. "GIF. - the idea of V. Ryabichev and Y. Karanov. - is one of the many digital image formats, which has a small size, high image clarity, nevertheless operates with a limited number of colors, namely: 256.

Thanks to animation effects, GIF fell into the category of the most popular graphic formats. The principle of creating these effects is based on the use of several static images-frames in turn. For each frame, the time of its illumination on the screen is indicated. Frame sequence can be looped. We often see this technology among advertising messages on the web.

"Computer animation, - I. Mashchenko notes, revealing the essence of this method of displaying information, is a way to create animated (drawn) film and video files using computers. Using software, as well as data banks (archives, pictorial information) and drawings made by on an electronic tablet, you can get on the display screen landscapes, scenes in which you can constantly make changes (relative to the image scale, angle, perspective, lighting, etc.) ".

Findings. In most cases, people now perceive information visually. This is due to the natural structure of their body, as well as the development of technological means focused on visual images. Logotype, clip scanning of the environment is inherent in our contemporary due to the global spread of visual images created by entrepreneurial structures, the main motive of which is the promotion of a product or service, making a profit. The Internet is saturated with banners, the streets with big boards, radio and television with audiovisual clips. In addition, with the help of modern technical aids, visual products can be created and replicated.

Visual content is a composite multimedia that, together with textual content, is part of the overall content of the web space. This computer technology for displaying information defines the peculiarity of Internet media. A huge array of text, combined with its interactivity and efficiency, pushes this means of communication to the forefront.

In the global network, it is the content that represents the main percentage of information that is displayed in different formats (video, image, photo, animation, etc.). They provide the media with new opportunities and advantages to convey messages to the target audience.

If we talk about practical application, then visual content is widely used in Internet communication. Practice is ahead of theoretical developments. There are a number of problems with the terminological basis of this computer-based method of displaying information. which is negatively indicated in the process of its study in higher educational institutions, in the preparation of the scientific literature necessary for this. Today, only a dozen professional publications can be named, in which the terminological base of this area is being developed. Domestic science needs national terminology, because this is a sign of the formation of the information society in Russia.

Thus, graphic design is a functional, analytical system for visualizing information. Its tasks are to transform information into visual signs, which should be interpreted as expressively as possible. Accordingly, the visual language of graphic design is a means of presenting information. The sign / system of signs determines the quality of information, the better the sign, the higher the degree of usefulness. The visual language of graphic design is a sign system: it uses visual messages, which are signs, to convey information. In turn, the messages form a visual text, which, together with many other texts, constitutes the visual hypertext of the information environment.

The language of graphic design is a tool of social control. It ensures the continuity and transmission of values from one generation to another. Without an ordered, formalized, and therefore limited discipline of communication, there is no possible community of people as participants in the historical process. Language is a tool and a universal means of communication. The effectiveness of communication lies in the coherence at all its stages: the creation of an information concept according to the context, the definition of a language strategy, the choice and creation of a transmission channel that ensures the effective perception of information, and analytics.

Further scientific research is being carried out in the direction of studying the visual language of graphic design from the standpoint of plastic syntax.