Why should I learn Visual Communication?

Great question and I am glad that you asked.

As the world changes, the way that we learn and take in information is changing rapidly. Did you know that we take in over 174 newspapers worth of information every day? Another way to look at is around 30GB of information each day. Emails, TV, Streaming, Social Media, Articles, Advertising: we are bombarded with more information than ever before. Because we are bombarded with so much shiny, exciting stuff, our attention span is now worse than a goldfish. (Yes, a goldfish!) We are ready to move on in around 5-6 seconds to the next new shiny thing if we are not engaged.

Here are some other reasons why our brain loves Visual Communication

• Around 90% of communication is non verbal
• 50% of our brain is involved in visual processing. It’s our most dominant sense!
• It only takes 1/10 of a second for your brain to visually get a sense of what’s happening. It’s much faster than reading.
• Visuals combined with text make things much easier to understand. Did you know that IKEA instructions would be about 360% harder without the pictures? They are hard enough already!
• We remember around 60% of what we see compared to about 10% of what we hear and 20% of what we read. Try and remember the headings on the PowerPoint presentation you saw last week, let alone the bullet points underneath. Those type of text-heavy presentations just doesn’t work.

So there are plenty of reasons to embrace a more visual style of communication. This not an attack on writing. You don’t want your will done only as an Infograph or not to enjoy reading a great book. Words are important and beautiful. For high level communication, exploring complex ideas at speed or reframing your thinking words and visuals together make a winning team.

At the heart of visual communication is the ability to draw.

Drawing should be the most natural thing to do. Man has been drawing on walls a long time before they ever doing PowerPoint presentations. As kids, we all LOVED to draw. What happened? Most people are terrified of it.

Visual Communication Episode 1 explores the number one thing I see that holds people back from drawing and developing a more engaging style of communication. I have spoken about the Ogre before in a previous blog on graphic facilitation. Not only does the Ogre kill your ability to draw and represent your thoughts visually, but the Ogre is also a huge handbrake on personal creativity and the ability to do great things.

If you would like to improve your Visual Communication skills, you can run our Graphic Facilitation workshops inhouse OR join one of our Graphic Facilitation public workshops.

Curious? You can get in contact here to find our more

Or check out my book on kickstarting a culture of innovation in your workplace, you can download the first 2 chapters FREE here. 

Chat soon,

Simon Banks