DESIGN RATIONALE
Today many factors impact on visual communications in Australia, a land where independent small businesses formerly flourished. In this huge continent the logic of e-business is not yet accepted by most Australians. The design rationale of this presentation is to convey information that may be useful to the Australian small-business sector.

Connolly, Norman & West say: “in 2011… around 95 per cent of the 2 million actively trading businesses in Australia… were small businesses” (2011, p. 3). Liz Colley says “in ten years time, the workforce and working environment will look nothing like it does today” (cited by SGS Economics & Planning, December 2013, p. 6). The type of change Colley describes is already apparent as only around 40 per cent of small businesses operate online while 95 per cent of large Australian businesses do (digitalbusiness.gov.au, 2 July 2013).

Shaw says: “ the means of communication have been transformed… global communications systems… dominated like most other economic fields by Western corporations with global reach” (cited by Beynon & Dunkerley, 2000, p. 186). However, Cassells Duncan, Abello , D’Souza & Nepal, say “Australians [are] industrious… are a nation of inventors, born in part through our isolation from the rest of the world” (October, 2012, p. 3). So, the specific target audience for the presentation is Australians of any ethnic background, involved in any type of small business.

More than half of small businesses are sole operators (Connolly, Norman & West, 2011, p. 3, and personal family experience, 1954-2014). These are busy people, so the design decision was to use standard business communication in-print format. This is predominantly white space with sparse written text designed for a relaxed tone.

For legibility the font choice is fresh, clean sans serif Helvetica Neue, 35/17/14 point, ‘thin’ weight. To help retain key facts, occasional words or phrases are enlivened with Comic Sans MS, mostly 26 point, weight bold, in bright, quirky, ‘non-business’ colour combinations. For example, on page 3 the colours “red, orange and yellow… called by Kalmus the warm or advancing colours” are featured throughout the page, as they “call forth sensations of excitement, activity” (cited by Dalle Vacche & Price, 2006, p. 26).

Australia, possibly now the country with the greatest ethnic diversity (Our Country Our People, 2014) is today a puzzling place. Paul Maginn (27 January 2013), says Western Australians will soon… [be] increasingly diverse in terms of their cultural background”. Good visuals can slice “through the clutter” (Langton and Campbell, 2011, p. 16) and a big part of the design is in the choice of illustrations, especially the wry initial graphics on page 2, (Fig. 1) and page 3 (Fig. 2),

Langton and Campbell say In this melting-pot society “clever” and credible visual designs can masterfully exhibit many goods and services. Effective visuals can “establish a unique voice and brand” (2011, p. 16). Graphics like the artistic English-language vowel, ‘A’ on page 8 (Fig. 4) and the surreal orange/apple photograph (Fig. 6) on page 9, work in today’s complicated “language context“ Featherstone, 2006), where concreteness no longer exists.

In 2013 the internet was an accepted major communication mode with more than 80 per cent of Australian households (potential customers) connected to the internet (Dane, Mason and O’Brien-MacInally, 2013, p 9). Yet, while the internet is now the main communication channel, only about 37 per cent of Australians “used the internet on a monthly basis or more to… buy goods” (p. 17). Yet, as Derewianka (1946) says, humans “are constantly learning language, learning through language, and learning about language” (p.3).

Today many Australian small businesses have, as Connolly, Norman & West say, “a higher degree of volatility… [than medium and large] businesses with more diversified customer bases” (2011, p. 8). The design rationale is to return to what Trilling (2001) explains are two of the “seven pairs” of the “framework for … visual appreciation”. These, “determinacy versus indeterminacy” and “comprehensibility versus complexity”. These are necessarily dialectic, as they continue to rely on each other (p. 11). Today they provide background for the “unfamiliar style” (p. 11). of current, and dynamic local and global visual communciations. As Shaw says:

Although less easily summarized… [and] intermeshing
with economic and political globalization, people are
coming to see their lives in terms of common expectations,
values and goals. These cultural norms include ideas of
standard of living, lifestyle, entitlements to welfare,
citizenship rights, democracy, ethnic and linguistic rights,
nationhood, gender equality environmental quality, etc.
Many of them have originated in the West, but they are
increasingly , despite huge differences in their meanings in
different social contexts, parts of the ways of life and of
political discourse across the world. In this sense, we can
talk of the emergence of a global culture.
(cited by Beynon and Dunkerley, 2004, p. 186)

Imagery can assist. On page 3, this image is from the cover of a recent best-selling novel for Western readers by an ethnic Chinese writer. The picture shows a gentle, Western-user-friendly ‘bird in a tree’ (Fig. 2) The written text reminds about other invaluable visual tools – like cross-cultural dictionaries. On page 6 (Fig. 3) is chosen to demonstrate how California, USA, like Australia, is now a global, world society, which as ‘the West’ no longer exists needs to develop a “unity of working and learning” (McCullough, 1996, p. 9).

One visual communications tool in this difficult new world is photography. Sturken &
Carwright (2001), explain the subjective and objective combine in photography, whose
“details… can show off textures ” (Langton and Campbell, 2011,p. 8). For example, with
Australia’s extraordinary range of climate and terrain and associated lifestyles, photography can, when “ top-notch… [increase] the perception of a premium product” (p. 21) and elicit heightened audience response.

For small businesses like B&Bs, boutique hotels, farm and home-stays, camping grounds, trekking, restaurants, cafes, bars, etcetera, images like the two ‘Vintage Trailer’ photographs (Figs. 6 & 7), page 8 can, as Lilly Schonwald says, quickly “show how the building looks from daybreak to nightfall.” Schonwald explains as designs are “based on the light and the air…[they relate] back to nature and its surroundings and how it changes during different time periods throughout the day” (cited by Langton and Campbell, 2011, p. 12).

The presentation is designed to assist Australia’s small business sector to understand how visual communications in business in Australia today are affected by current major social changes The design rationale focussed on Australia’s now diverse, ‘world’ local community and engaging small-business operators in a dialogue about the internets’ ability to deliver visual communications locally and globally. Instead it became a personal learning experience. This allowed me to gain some understanding of how to use PowerPoint. While the initial design decision was to link engaging illustrations and small functional blocks of text to present these complicated, and possibly new ideas, I am unsatisfied with my result.
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