EGC: INTRODUCING EDITING AND GRAPHICS OF COMMUNICATION

Definition of Terms: Editing

This is a process of enhancing the quality of texts or graphics through amendment, as well as addition and subtraction of materials. Editing is an improvement process by which a graphic item is made adequately readable, understandable or communicable. Editing can be done on images, as well as on texts. Different kinds of editing that can be performed on texts including structural, copy as well as proofreading. Most layout and graphic software applications like Photoshop, QuarkXPress and Corel Draw (and Corel PhotoPaint) have the capacity to edit, as well as manipulate graphics and texts. The more the number of professionals who edit a graphic or editorial item, the more the quality improves. This is why in editing, two heads are better than one. Part of this course is devoted to editorial and graphic editing.

Graphics

Graphics are texts, drawings, designs, illustrations or images that are deliberately created via a medium by hand or some other means in a manner that makes visual, cultural, aesthetic or commercial meaning. The creator of a graphic may draw an inspiration from himself, some other beings or from his or her environment. Please note, graphics, within the context of this course, are not meaningless drawings. They are deliberate creations. They are not accidental or acts of serendipity.

Graphics can be functional or artistic. When graphics are functional, it means that they are not mere impression but actually useful or are performing some particular functions. For instance, the texts and photographs you see in newspapers are not for decoration, They are published to inform, educate and inform. When they are artistic, they are created for style to invoke or provoke one’s sense of aesthetics and create some fantasy, feeling or figment of imagination.

Communication

Communication is the transmission of a message from one point to another that produces some effect. According to Harold Lasswell (1948), a useful and convenient way of describing communication is to make it answer these pertinent questions: Who says what? In what channel? To whom? With what effect? Berelson and Steiner (1964) define communication as ‘the transmission of information, ideas, skills and emotions e.t.c by the use of symbols-words, pictures, groups e.t.c. it is the act or process of transmission that is usually called communication’.

Hovland, Janis and Kelley (1953) define communication as ‘the process by which an individual (the communicator) transmits stimuli (especially verbal) to modify the behavior of other individuals (the audience).

From these definitions, one thing is clear. Communication is from one party to another and it is effected when the person receiving the communication has made meaning out of what he has communicated and responded to accordingly. Where there is no response, then communication is one-way. But when there is response, communication has been done.

Editing and Graphics of Communication: A Definition

From the foregoing, it is established precisely that editing is an improvement process while graphics are texts or designs that are created. Communication is the process of transmitting a meaningful message from one point. It is also established that graphics of communication means the creation of graphics to make meaning. From a simple syllogism, one could therefore, define Editing and Graphics of Communication as the process of improving texts or graphics that are created to be transmitted or communicated meaningfully.

The implication of this definition is multifarious. First is that graphics are created or produced. Second is that graphics communicate. Third is that graphics that communicate can be improved upon for more meaningful communication. The definition can therefore be reworded as the process of producing and improving graphics for information, education and entertainment. When graphics educate, inform and entertain, they are said to make the right meaning. When a graphic makes the right meaning, it implies that it has been transmitted as a message, instruction, idea or an impression.

Graphics of Communication: Social Sciences

Graphic Communication is simply the process of producing graphics to communicate to an audience. Whether what you are communicating is through a composed text, drawing, photograph, illustration or slides, you are either communicating an idea, passing an instruction, sending a message in a way that is culturally meaningful to your audience. The term “culturally meaningful” means that what you are communicating must be doing one, two, three or four of the following:

• Persuading
• Informing
• Educating
• Entertaining

Here lies the difference in definition from that of the engineering people. An engineer or geometrician is most likely not going to define graphic communication from the entertainment perspective, even though he likes to develop the technology in order to provide entertainment for others.

This is because it involves the development of massive algorithms that are complex and may not be entertaining but only mathematical or computational. In social science and as it concerns us in this book, graphic communication must impact the audience and that impartation must educate, inform and entertain.

Graphic communication occupies a major place in visual communication, which, as the term suggests, is communication through two or three-dimensional visual aids and forms. The effectiveness of graphics of communication is determined by the rate of response of the audience of that communication. When it is highly effective, it means that the associated audience has responded highly and vice versa.

History of Graphics and the Tools Used

Some of the earliest graphics and drawings known to the modern world, from almost 6,000 years ago, are that of engraved stone tablets and ceramic cylinder seals, marking the beginning of the historic periods, and the keeping of records for accounting and inventory purposes. Records from Egypt predate these and papyrus was used by the Egyptians as a material on which to plan the building of pyramids; they also used slabs of limestone and wood. From 600–250 BC, the Greeks played a major role in geometry. They used graphics to represent their mathematical theories such as the Circle Theorem and the Pythagorean Theorem.

In the recent time, computers have been made more powerful and are now capable of drawing both basic and complex shapes and designs. In the 1980s, artists and graphic designers began to see the personal computer, as a serious design tool, one that could save time and draw more accurately than other methods. 3D computer graphics became possible in the late 1980s with the powerful SGI computers, which were later used to create some of the first fully computer-generated short films. The Macintosh remains one of the most popular tools for computer graphics in graphic design studios and businesses.

Basic Types of Graphics

There are two main types of graphics namely:

1. Vector graphics, and
2. Bitmaps.

Vector Graphics

Vector graphics (Mukhopadhyay & Chattopadhyay, 2007) are those which can be created straightaway on a computer without engaging a third party system or facilitation. For instance, you can type texts, draw lines, curves, shapes and fill them with some color without the use of any third party gadget or appliance. These are generally referred to as graphic primitives and they, especially the shapes, are generated from a set of programmed algorithms that determine their positions, length as well as their directions. The following diagrams are examples of vector graphics.

Bitmaps or rasterised images (as technical persons and engineers prefer to call them) cannot be imputed into your system without the use of an application independent of your computer. Unlike vector graphics which are generated from a set of algorithms that determine their position, direction, weight and length, bitmaps consist of tiny squareshaped picture elements, which are called pixels – a reason why bitmaps are also called pixilated graphics. Each pixel is the small dotthat a computer can recognise. Each pixel maps a location in an image and has numerical color forms, each with a value. The photograph you take with your camera is a classic example of a bitmap graphic.

Other examples are scanned images. With the use of a scanner, you can input a bitmap image into your computer. Many high resolution scanners exist that can give high quality scans. Moreover, you can also get bitmap images from other sources such as clip art (ready-made images that can be imported from elsewhere into an application for use or editing) and the internet.

SOURCE:NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA