Imagine my horror when it turned out that, for the entire two-day session, my views would be captured by painting and drawing on flipcharts. We weren't allowed to write words at all, not even labels. I tried but I really can't draw and anyway my mind doesn't work that way. I had, in short, a bad weekend.
Lots of us in PR and comms have minds that work on words. Most of us started as journalists and all of us believe a Sunday with the papers and a vat of coffee is what evolution has been striving for all these years. Just check this for me. How close to your desk is your dictionary? How close to your desk is your history of art book? Is it still on the shelves at Amazon?
So we employ designers to do the visuals for us. Even then, though, graphic design is largely applied to the service of text. We allow designers to arrange our precious words and in these modern times, we illustrate the words with photos. Sometimes (if we feel a bit outre) we include cartoons or abstract art.
A while ago an old friend and visual artist Rob (follow him @plentymuch) gave a short discourse (over a cup of tea as I remember it) on the subject of the images in contemporary society. It rather struck me at the time. He argued that our access to visual media in popular culture: film, TV, print and, of course, the computer screen has given us a level of sophistication in how we interpret and understand images.
A pop video, for example, will reference movies, pieces of fine art, mass market brands and previous videos. This is transparent to the viewer and is often has a complex relation to the main story of the video. Visual short hand is widespread and well understood. My favourite Christmas card this year featured a snowman rendered as Munch's the Scream and titled "Forgot the Christmas Turkey". Tell me that's not sophisticated.
And it's a two way process of course. Images fly around social networks like... er... flies. Even if we get that we can transmit information and concepts in the form of pictures how easy do we make it for people to use images to talk to us.
Wordsmiths need to recognise that this is happening. Images aren't mere baubles to hang on our well-crafted prose. They can replace our prose. We need to spend a lot more time hanging out with designers and artists. We need to stop and think "Would a picture do this better?" We need to imagine a word in which the dictionary has pictures.
Now obviously I shouldn't have written this post. I should have selected a series of well chosen photographs. But my mind just doesn't work that way.
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