BUS340 Week 3 Discussion 2 Visual Design

Write about an example of communication that could be improved by applying the visual design principles you read about this week. The communication can be any medium—a web page, a magazine ad, a promotional email, an illustration from a report.

In your post, identify the visual weaknesses and describe ways to fix them. Explain why the message is not as effective as it could be and how your suggestions would make it more effective.

The example I chose as an example to show how a form of communication can be improved by utilizing visual design principles was my organizations “Holiday Party Promo” email. The email itself did follow the principles of email communication as discussed in our textbook. Principles such as ensuring the message was valuable to the receiver and had a purpose, was straight and to the point with all key information addressed, and was properly authorized through my chain of command before being sent out (Bovee & Thill, 2018). The main issue I found with the email was the lack of visual aid or flyer that could have been printed out and pasted all over our unit buildings to better market the party. Emails are great and can be full of useful information. The problem I have with them is they are not necessarily accessible by everyone. With only so many computers to be utilized not everyone has a chance to check their email every single day. Many people are not present or on duty when these emails get sent out. This is where a visual aid would be ideal because it can be attached to the email and the sender could have requested that these flyers be posted on office bulletins where information is easily accessed. Not to mention for those that are more visual learners, a wordy email could often be skipped over and important details could be missed.

Our textbook discusses what points need to be addressed when illustrating a message. Obviously you don’t want a messy and overbearing illustration that is hard to follow. In order to have a comprehensive/focused illustration you need to remember the five Cs. These are clear, complete, concise, connected, and compelling (Bovee & Thill, 2018). In the case of my units holiday party promo it would be beneficial to include all the important information on an easily understandable flyer. Points to address would be: Time and date, location, dress code, ugly sweater contest, childcare options, ticket prices, alcohol provisions, meal choices, and finally where and from whom you would purchase tickets from. These can all be easily illustrated with a mix of picture identification and a list style format that is simple but eye catching. All this would be wrapped up in a nice Christmas style décor that shows the event will be fun and full of festivities. While our textbook lists charts, graphs, and tables as good forms of relaying data (Bovee & Thill, 2018) these forms of illustrations wouldn’t be necessary unless the sender was trying to illustrate how much grander and more extravagant our parties have become over the years. Or if they wanted to show how much our fundraising organization had raised over the course of the fiscal year to put towards this party.

References

Bovee, C. L., & Thill, J. V. (2018). Business communication today (14th ed.). Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Taylor, B. (October 30, 2019). Desert Defender Holiday Party Promo. Retrieved from (Link Provided as Attachment)