Visual Abstratctions

What do we use Visuals Abstractions (e.g. Sketches, Mind Maps, Graphs etc.) for? Especially in our role as designer; When does it make sense to use not the final product/design as representative, but rather raw sketches or fancy diagrams. We talked about the powers and weaknesses of visual abstractions in this weeks course.

Where everything began

As almost in every design field that tries to be settled in a historical context, the origin of visual abstractions could be found in the (possibly) first human paintings; cave drawings. People tried to manifest their experiences, thoughts, wishes and dreams by drawing on cave walls with rudimental tools. Of course, they weren’t able to draw photorealistic objects, therefore this can be seen as an early phase of abstraction.

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Some millennials later, when people started to discover the world (especially by sailing over the seven seas) a system had to fulfil the need for orientation. That’s the birth of cartography. Later on, statistical visualisations began to be more and more part of our daily perception.

How can we use visual abstractions as designers?

Especially visual abstractions are no meant to look beautiful at first glance, but rather to follow a certain need. In case of the designer, there are two main focus on how those can be used; to visualise one’s process or to sell an idea. In both cases, visuals can tell other people a lot, and decides eventually if they agree with your idea or not. Visuals are also able to manipulate. With that in mind, we can play with color, saturation and size of how things are presented, in order to direct the audiences opinions.