Take Another Look: Visual Communication | Analysis of the Haunting Illustrations for George Orwell’s 1984

" The act of creation a visual language so impactful, it carries & conveys the perfect message..."

Communication is a field that has no boundaries. Indeed, sometimes it is possible to influence the masses, as well as maintain contact with them without dialogue and unnecessary discussions. In the previous article, I told you about subliminal messages and now we will look at a broader branch of this area - visual communication.

What is visual communication and why do we need it?

Visual communication, with its shortest and clearest definition, is a type of communication that emerges by transferring information to the other party in the form of images. In this context, in visual communication, which is a type of communication that directly emphasizes the eye and visual perception, living things express what they want to convey to the other party in a visual way.

Thanks to visual communication, the information or thoughts conveyed take a more permanent place in the memory of the person transferred and are perceived faster than a written text. At the same time, attention should be paid to gestures in visual communication.

What Are Visual Communication Tools?

Living things use various V/C tools to establish visual communication. If we come to the question of what are the visual communication tools, we will have to go back to ancient times. In the years that can be regarded as the beginning of humanity, people were able to maintain their communication thanks to the paintings and various images they made on the cave walls.

When we look at the age we live in, it is seen that visual communication tools are everywhere we turn our heads. To give the simplest example, the tables hanging on our walls, the logos of the products we use ... They are all visual communication tools and they can communicate with us without writing.

If we make a general ranking; television, computer, letter, photo, articles, pictures, cinema, press releases, blogs, notes, newspapers, books and other tools.

What plays an important role during creation of visual communication?

First of all, you need to decide on the message. In other words, the text you want to convey to the masses. If you cannot formulate your message correctly, then in this case your attempt to use visual communication will not give you a positive result.

In addition, you need to carefully work on facial expressions (if you are using an illustration depicting a person), it is important to choose the right color, theme and so on.

Analysis of the Haunting Illustrations for George Orwell’s 1984

There are two basic works that come to mind today when it comes to dystopia: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, the other one is 1984 by George Orwell.

The story begins on April 4, 1984, when Winston Smith left his job at the Ministry of Truth for a while and went home to secretly record his memories. It follows that Winston, who questioned and does not accept authority internally, meets Julia and then his dialogue with O'Brien, one of the upper echelons of the party, to take action against the system, changes Smith's life forever. After the great wars, the world had a three-pole structure at that time: Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia.

Along with its leaders named Big Brother and the ruling Ingsoc party, Oceania has turned into an empire of fear. Besides, it is in constant war with the remaining two states respectively. Private life has been eliminated and people are under the control and observation of the management at all times, even in their homes, with devices called the tele screen. In this case, it doesn't take long before Winston and his only love Julia are caught. The main surprising event in the capture of the two stems from the name at the beginning of the operation. O'Brien is a clever member who serves in the high rank of the party. Although he seems to be on Emmanuel Goldstein's side at first, we understand towards the end that his main purpose is to serve the party.

The main purpose of the story is to impose a certain ideology on its citizens. We can explain the state ideology in this book with the following quotations from the book:

"War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

Ignorance is strength."

Imposing this understanding on society is the primary goal and for this reason, "fear" is triggered by never-ending wars. If you read the explanation of these sentences in detail from the book, it will leave a more permanent impression.

Although written in the past, this book opens the door to the future. It shows how life will turn into if people allow themselves to be dragged under the repressive power of the state. He warns about this.

"Big brother is watching you!" - This is a famous expression from the book "1984". People are watched by Big Brother. It is forbidden to think, to love, to express your own thoughts freely because "Big Brother is watching you".

So let’s discuss, how was this famous sentence conveyed to the public on the cover of the book and in other visual works?

As you can see, we can say that all illustrations are explained with "eyes and camera". Thus, the creators of these illustrations tried to convey to us this expression "Big Brother is watching you", to show how the people are under total control.

Pay attention to this illustration. As you can see, the whole image is in grayscale except for the Big Brother poster. The essence of this lies in the fact that according to the book, all the attention of the people is fixated only on the total control by the "Big Brother".

What are they trying to convey to us with the help of these illustrations? You have no right to think and write. All your action is under control. You can only write the way Big Brother wants.

Psychological Effects of Colors

Additionally, as you can see, all illustrations are in gray tones, while red was used for items worth looking at. So what is the main secret of using these particular colors?

Each color creates different psychological effects on people. For the correct use of visual communication, the designer should pay attention to the following two elements: The cultural connotation of color and the purpose of the design.

Considered as one of the most important tools of communication, colors, with the meanings they convey, assume very important functions in the persuasion process. In the persuasion process, colors are sometimes used to create a stronger effect or to create visual attention and sometimes to make the image easier to read. At this point, based on the visuals in question, I have to state that:

Black: This color, which gives a symbolically negative appearance, is the color of negativity and death.

Red: Red, one of the warm colors, conveys both positive and negative meanings. It is a color that tires the look but draws attention. As negative meanings, red symbolizes war, violence, death and hell.

For this reason, the images describing the George Orwell's 1984 book, especially the cover of the book, were mainly conveyed in black and red. In a book dominated by this kind of negative energy, it would be a grave mistake to use colors that have clear and positive meanings (for examle: purple, lilac, pink ).

In summary, visual communication emerges as one of the most important branches of this field. In order to use visual communication correctly, we must pay extra attention to every little detail, and work meticulously on every object, up to its color and shape. At this point, incorrectly used mimics, objects and colors prevent us from reaching the target positively.

The Golden Rule

For the correct use of visual communication, first of all:

1 - Determine the message you want to forward

2 - Consider the psychological effects of the colors to be used

3 - Determine and research your target audience / The main purpose of the research is to determine whether the target audience has the potential to perceive the message we want to convey

4 - Create visual communication

5 - Deliver your message to the target audience

6 - Evaluate your results

Based on these articles, we can now clearly say that any visual presented in the field of communication is never a coincidence. Each visual presented serves a specific purpose, it is used as an effective tool to convey a certain message. In order to perceive and evaluate all these correctly, it will be enough to be a little more careful and examine the details of the visual presented to you.