Communication design

Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development which is concerned with how media intermission such as printed, crafted, electronic media or presentations communicate with people. A communication design approach is not only concerned with developing the message aside from the aesthetics in media, but also with creating new media channels to ensure the message reaches the target audience. Communication design seeks to attract, inspire, create desires and motivate the people to respond to messages, with a view to making a favorable impact to the bottom line of the commissioning body, which can be either to build a brand, move sales, or for humanitarian purposes. Its process involves strategic business thinking, utilizing market research, creativity, and problem-solving. The term communication design is often used interchangeably with visual communication and more specifically graphic design, but has an alternate broader meaning that includes auditory, vocal, touch, smell and visual communication. Examples of Communication Design include: 1. information architecture 2. editing 3. typography 4. illustration 5. web design 6. animation 7. advertising 8. ambient media 9. visual identity design 10. performing arts copywriting and professional writing skills applied in the creative industries.

• Advertisement of Victoria's Secret. Advertisement is a type of communication design.(photo)

Methods of Advertising

• To reach the consumer, advertisers employ a wide variety of media. In the United States, the most popular media, as measured by the amount of ad spending, are television, newspapers, direct mail, radio, Yellow Pages, magazines, the Internet, outdoor advertising, and a variety of other media, including transit ads, novelties, and point-of-purchase displays. (These rankings are measured each year by Advertising Age, an advertising trade magazine, and seldom vary.)
• In Canada, newspapers are the most popular advertising medium, followed by television, magazines, radio, and outdoor advertising. Canada is the ninth largest advertising market in the world.
• In 1999 television attracted about 23.4 percent, or $50.4 billion, of the advertising dollars spent in the United States. Television is available to advertisers in two forms: broadcast and cable. Broadcast TV—television signals that are sent over the air rather than through cable wires—generates all of its revenue from advertising. Advertising accounts for about 60 percent of cable television revenues with the rest coming from subscriber fees.
• To run commercials on television, advertisers buy units of time known as spots. The standard units of time are 15, 30, or 60 seconds in length. These spots are purchased either locally or from a national network. Because of the high cost of national network spots, ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, only large national advertisers can afford to run network television spots. Advertisers wishing to reach a local audience can buy time from an individual station. But even these spots cost so much to produce and run that small and even many mid-sized companies cannot afford them.
• Because television commercials combine sight, sound, and motion, they are more dramatic than any other form of advertising and lend excitement and appeal to ordinary products. Advertisers consider television an excellent medium to build a product's brand image or to create excitement around a particular event such as a year-end auto sale. But TV spots are too brief to provide much product information. As a result, television works best for products such as automobiles, fashion, food, beverages, and credit cards that viewers are familiar with and easily understand.
• In the United States, newspapers are the second most popular advertising medium after television and in 1999 received 21.7 percent, or $46.6 billion, of all advertising dollars. Newspapers enable advertisers to reach readers of all age groups, ethnic backgrounds, and income levels.

Newspaper and Display Ads

Two types of advertising appear in newspapers: classified advertising, such as the want ads, and display advertising. Display ads range in size from as large as a full page to as small as one column in width and less than one centimeter (less than one inch) in length. Display ads often contain illustrations or photographs and usually provide information about where the product or service being advertised can be purchased. Typically, advertising makes up about 65 percent of a newspaper's content and generates about 65 percent of a newspaper's revenue. About 88 percent of this revenue comes from local businesses. Most advertisers believe that newspaper ads fail to convey the kind of emotional images that build brand image. As a result, most newspaper advertising is done by retailers who use newspaper ads to provide timely information that can lead to immediate sales. Newspapers are particularly well suited to this role because most are published daily. Readers can clip coupons from the newspaper and cash them in quickly at local stores. People also turn to newspapers for immediately useful information about product discounts, bank interest rates, restaurant specials, and entertainment. Direct mail is the third largest advertising medium, attracting about 19.2 percent, or $41 billion, of all U.S. advertising dollars in 1999. Direct mail advertising, as the name implies, is advertising that is sent directly to people by mail, usually through the postal system. Increasingly, however, electronic mail (e-mail) is being used as a direct mail device. Direct mail can be as simple as a single letter or as involved as a catalog or an elaborate e-mail known as HTML mail that offers graphics and links to more information. From the advertiser's point of view, the key to a successful direct mail program is the mailing list. The mailing list contains the names and addresses of people who share certain common characteristics that suggest they will be likely to buy a particular product or service. Because advertisers are speaking directly to those who are most likely to buy their product or service, many advertisers consider direct mail the most effective of all advertising media for generating immediate results. Direct mail through the U.S. postal system, however, is the most expensive form of advertising, costing about 14 times as much per exposure as most magazine and newspaper ads. But because of the results it produces, many advertisers believe the expense is justified.

Directories

Yellow Pages, the thick directories of telephone listings and display advertisements, represented the fifth most popular advertising medium in 1999, attracting $12.6 billion, or 5.9 percent, of total advertising spending. Almost all advertising in the Yellow Pages is local advertising.Magazines ranked sixth in 1999 in total U.S. ad spending, representing 5.3 percent, or $11.4 billion. Although newspapers reach all different kinds of readers, a magazine’s specialized editorial content generally reaches readers who have similar interests. The relatively specialized, narrow audience of a magazine enables an advertiser to speak to those most likely to buy a particular product. For example, a manufacturer of mascara who advertises to teenage girls could use a magazine with editorial content aimed especially at teenage girls to reach that audience exclusively.

A magazine's editorial environment can also lend a product credibility and prestige, and the magazine’s ability to reproduce beautiful color photographs can enhance a product's appearance. As a result, magazine advertising is an effective way to build a product's brand image. Because such advertising is expensive and because most magazines are distributed regionally or nationally, they generally feature national advertising rather than local advertising. Magazines generate 63 percent of their revenue from advertising.