What is the role of the audience? An understanding of the audience can enhance the focus and communication of a specific work. With graphic communication, this may require a lot of thorough research. A designer usually is required to solve a problem visually, to portray a message graphically, this means that the designer must ensure he/she has done enough preparation for their message to be portrayed and hit the audience with information, or persuasion. However, a communicator cannot just simply throw information at any audience. They must narrow down their target audience. In the lecture we were shown British Airline Sky Flyers design ideas and how they were all colourful, playful and cartoon, directly aimed at children who’s main concern is supposed to be having fun. Not all of the audience target groups are for commercial and selling purposes. Some are for social and human rights purposes, such as campaigns. In the lecture we were also shown images of illustrative designs and a final outcome on an advert for bullying. The image is colourful and soft visually but the overall message highlights bullying, it is attention grabbing to more than one peer group (children and parents) which is powerful. The soft colours of the picture make it “non-scary” however the anti-bullying message is still potent.
