The Eyes Have It

The Democratization of Visual Communication

Once you get started using an RSS aggregator, it can be easy to lose track of memes you want to mention. a n t e n n a pointed this out early in April:

"It must say something about the state of contemporary culture that the Corbis home page devotes equal real estate to professional and personal users. (Links under 'for personal use' include 'Crafts Pictures' and 'E-Cards'). What's interesting to me here is something about the democratization of visual communication - the idea that more people are communicating graphically (not to mention via animation) than ever before. Only a generation ago, choosing a font was an esoteric task for a specialized caste of professionals. Now, Corbis sees a viable consumer market for stock art."

Does this mean that audiences and end users will anticipate and demand that all but the most mundane of communications be visually rich (think The Diamond Age)? And since the general public now has access to many of the same tools and resources used by those who communicate visually for a living, will they will begin to gain a more discerning sense of what's possible and what's appropriate?

These issues bring to mind some of the central themes in Being Visual: A Guidebook for Strategic Presentation in the Rich-media Communications Era by Robert L. Lindstrom:

"On the people side, the first thing to do is accept the fact that the average businessperson will one day be equipped with as much rich-media communication capability as a regional television station. They will be able to capture, edit, receive, transmit, and do all sorts of rich-media magic that today is handled mostly by qualified media professionals. At some point they will use audio, video, music, animation, graphics, text and numbers at will, adopting whatever media best fits the message."

I know this isn't a particularly new or original question, but what will the "qualified media professional" eventually morph into?