ITAP Week 2 - Illustration

Research & Audience


Research is an investigation, study, explore, delving in deeper into the subject. Its understanding the subject in full and deeper meaning. Allows one to be able to use the subject to form another thing. It enables you to interpret and it is also debatable. There are two types of research, Primary Research and Secondary Research.

-Primary Research-

Doing researches without an existing data or information is known as Primary Research. The researcher takes control in the research method. Primary research enables the researcher to do research freely. The advantage of primary research is that the information collected is genuinely owned by the researcher. Unfortunately, by the time the research is complete it might be out of date. To focus on the research, the researcher may have to be employed so they could have a bigger budget in their research, and also employed researchers are full-time researchers which enables them to focus fully on carrying out the research.

-Secondary Research-

Secondary research concludes the summary, synthesis of existing research data is then collected from various source, such as books and the most popular ones nowadays are search engines. The search engines has increased the chances of carrying out secondary research and its convenient for researchers to conduct a research since its free and could be found almost anywhere.

Visual research however, is about collection, study, observation and exploring. Research is necessary for visuals to know how to communicate visually with audiences. Study and investigate how is that using images and other visuals to give out a message to audiences. Visual research is also learning how to develop a language through drawing, collecting and documentary. Through research it contributes a deeper understanding of subject. To understand the way a subject forms and the history of it enables the researcher to re-use the method.

Audiences are important to an illustrator, obviously its because an illustrator illustrates for audiences to view and then decodes the message sent. Understanding and knowledge of an audience can enhance and focus the communication. To be able to focus and target certain audiences, researches are necessary to do so, the illustrator will have to understand the needs of the audiences and the way audiences thinks. It is not about following blindly what a client wants, but a guide to what you can do. 

Example:

    Two engaged couples came in and ask you to make them a wedding invitation card. Couple A along with their 50 years old Chinese parents. You can tell they are very traditional Chinese parents, by just looking how they dress and speak. Couple B came along with their parents, and by their looks you can tell they are 21st century modern parents. The question is which invitation card will you choose for them.

Once you have know the audience's needs, you are able to make decision according to their taste. It is important for an illustrator to know its audience well, so they wouldn't make simple mistakes like giving a white invitation card to Couple A since their parents are very traditional Chinese, which white is prohibited for Chinese during happy occasions.





Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Primary_research
http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Secondary_research
http://www.brighton.ac.uk/visuallearning/
http://www.sprinderlink.com/content/x63334678315557t/