Communication Design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development which is concerned with how media intermission such as printed, crafted, electronic media or presentations communicate with people. A communication design approach is not only concerned with developing the message aside from the aesthetics in media, but also with creating new media channels to ensure the message reaches the target audience. Some designers use graphic design and communication design interchangeably due to overlapping skills.
Communication design can also refer to a systems-based approach, in which the totality of media and messages within a culture or organization are designed as a single integrated process rather than a series of discrete efforts. This is done through communication channels that aim to inform and attract the attention of the people you are focusing your skills on. Design skills must be tailored to fit to different cultures of people, while maintaining pleasurable visual design. These are all important pieces of information to add to a media communications kit to get the best results.
“Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy.” – Leisa Reichelt –
Communication design seeks to attract, inspire, create desires and motivate the people to respond to messages, with a view to making a favorable impact to the bottom line of the commissioning body, which can be either to build a brand, move sales, or for humanitarian purposes. Its process involves strategic business thinking, using market research, creativity, and problem-solving. Communications designers translate ideas and information through a variety of media. Their particular talent lies not only in the traditional skills of the hand, but also in their ability to think strategically in design and marketing terms, in order to establish credibility through the communication.
The term communication design is often used interchangeably with visual communication, but has an alternative broader meaning that includes auditory, vocal, touch and smell. Examples of communication design include information architecture, editing, typography, illustration, web design, animation, advertising, ambient media, visual identity design, performing arts, copywriting and professional writing skills applied in the creative industries.
The identification of self-esteem as a distinct psychological construct is thought to have its origins in the work of William James (1892). James identified multiple dimensions of the self, with two levels of hierarchy: processes of knowing (called the ‘I-self’) and the resulting knowledge about the self (the `Me-self’). Observation and storage by the I-self create three types of knowledge, which collectively account for the Me-self, according to James. These are the material self, social self, and spiritual self. The social self comes closest to self-esteem, comprising all characteristics recognized by others. The material self consists of representations of the body and possessions, and the spiritual self of descriptive representations and evaluative dispositions regarding the self. This view of self-esteem as the collection of an individual’s attitudes toward oneself remains today.
In the mid-1960s, sociologist Morris Rosenberg defined self-esteem as a feeling of self-worth and developed the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES), which became the most-widely used scale to measure self-esteem in the social sciences.
In the early 20th century, the behaviorist movement minimized introspective study of mental processes, emotions and feelings, which was replaced by objective study through experiments on behaviors observed in relation with environment. Behaviorism placed the human being as an animal subject to reinforcements, and suggested placing psychology as an experimental science, similar to chemistry or biology.
“The path of development is a journey of discovery that is clear only in retrospect, and it’s rarely a straight line.”
As a consequence, clinical trials on self-esteem were overlooked, since behaviorists considered the idea less liable to rigorous measurement hypothesis. In the mid-20th century, the rise of phenomenology and humanistic psychotherapy led to renewed interest in self-esteem. Self-esteem took a central role in personal self-actualization and in the treatment of psychic disorders. Psychologists started to consider the relationship between psychotherapy and the personal satisfaction of a person with high self-esteem as useful to the field. This was able to lead to new elements being introduced to the concept of self-esteem. This included things such as helping to understand the reasons why people tend to feel less worthy. Other elements added to the concept of self-esteem were understanding why people become discouraged or unable to understand challenges by themselves.
Currently, the core self-evaluations approach includes self-esteem as one of four dimensions that comprise one’s fundamental appraisal of oneself, along with locus of control, neuroticism, and self-efficacy. The concept of core self-evaluations as first examined by Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997), has since proven to have the ability to predict several work outcomes, specifically, job satisfaction and job performance. Self-esteem may, in fact, be one of the most essential core self-evaluation dimensions because it is the overall value one feels about oneself as a person.
Many early theories suggested that self-esteem is a basic human need or motivation. American psychologist Abraham Maslow included self-esteem in his hierarchy of human needs. He described two different forms of “esteem”: the need for respect from others in the form of recognition, success, and admiration, and the need for self-respect in the form of self-love, self-confidence, skill, or aptitude. Respect from others was believed to be more fragile and easily lost than inner self-esteem. According to Maslow, without the fulfillment of the self-esteem need, individuals will be driven to seek it and unable to grow and obtain self-actualization. Maslow also states that the healthiest expression of self-esteem is the one we take deserve from others. It is more than just renown or flattery. Modern theories of self-esteem explore the reasons humans are motivated to maintain a high regard for themselves. Sociometer theory maintains that self-esteem evolved to check one’s level of status and acceptance in ones’ social group. According to Terror Management Theory, self-esteem serves a protective function and reduces anxiety about life and death.
One of the most widely used instruments, the RSES (Rosenberg, 1965) is a 10-item self-esteem scale scores that requires participants to indicate their level of agreement with a series of statements about themselves. An alternative measure, The Coopersmith Inventory uses a 50-question battery over a variety of topics and asks subjects whether they rate someone as similar or dissimilar to themselves. If a subject’s answers demonstrate solid self-regard, the scale regards them as well adjusted. If those answers reveal some inner shame, it considers them to be prone to social deviance.