Visual communication materials for rural audiences: re-orienting artists and copy-writers
Chen, P.
Development Communication Report 1989(66): 4-5
1989
ISSN/ISBN: 0192-1312 PMID: 12283152 Document Number: 371624
An agency of the Indian government cooperated with a United Nations Children Fund to produce posters for the child survival and development program in India. To make the posters and other visual communications more effective a workshop was planned for the artists, visualizers, and copywriters. Previous experience had shown that some visual materials were not always oriented to the local contexts and villages often misinterpreted the messages of these materials. The 12 day workshop was designed to assist artists to better understand the audiences needs. there had been little pretesting of art work for health communication and no consideration of the visual literacy of the audience. The first project in the workshop consisted of artists and copywriters visiting villages to pretest posters presently in circulation. After some reservations they quickly found that the villagers perception of the posters was entirely different than the message being conveyed. By going back and getting the villagers perceptions of common sights related to maternal and child health, the artist could better prepare communication materials. They also collected basic sociological data at each village. New posters were then prepared with the help of inputs from midwives, nurses, and other health care workers. By pretesting these materials again they were able to clarify the messages, and repeated testing showed the posters were more understandable. The participants in the workshop found that visual communications materials demand proper understanding of the subject matter and the audience. Pretesting of materials is necessary before production, and changes should be made to reflect the local culture and surroundings. Posters for rural illiterate audiences should have the minimum written text needed and visual literacy must be assessed.