“The benefits of the visual arts are lifelong. Visual art does not have boundaries. It enables people to play with materials, to express their thinking, to problem solve and make sense of emotions,” says Dr Lindsay, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the University of Wollongong’s School of Education, “Art makes us resilient, it is great for problem solving and understanding the world. It helps us develop our creativity across every aspect of our lives.”

Innovative thinking

As we head into a new era of technological development, with advances in Artificial Inteligence, robotics and other various science-based wonders, it would be a mistake to dismiss the human element in education. Arts education – across all creative fields – visual arts, performing arts and music – all contribute to the development of innovative thinking.

We are at a precipice. At the moment AI is functioning on what we have and can input into a dataset. It is not functionally sentient. It is interpreting human content, rearranging, and presenting it back to us. It is not creating something completely new and unique. It is an amalgam of human achievement. Once AI and quantum computing become both prevalent and stable, these systems will be self-sustaining, and the space left for humans will be in creative innovation.

The creative element of new endeavor remains the domain of people. Skills for the future of humanity, and future economic participation are deeply rooted in arts education.

NAAE (National Advocates for Arts Education) advocates for the inclusion of Arts in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to create STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) in order to better prepare students for the future. We don’t know what the jobs of the future will look like. Many jobs that exist today were unheard of 40 years ago. A diverse and thorough education gives our children the best possible foundation for the future. While specialization is important, a strong foundation provided necessary skills for future learning.

Transdisciplinary engagement

Skills from Arts education, and their outcomes are important for transdisciplinary engagement – from critical and creative thinking to communication with collaboration and teamwork. One example of this is science communicators. Interfacing between science, media and the community requires a skillset that is not found solely in STEM education. Communication and teamwork skills are intrinsic to a school drama class. Should a student be exposed to both STEM and Arts learning, there is the opportunity to engage and understand interpersonal creative learning.

We also should not think that creativity is limited to the arts. An engineer without creativity is unable to ideate to develop, design and build a bridge. We should not underestimate the amount of creativity across all STEM disciplines. By also being exposed to Arts education, we encourage people to experiment and grow, skills which can then be applied to all aspects of life and learning.

Enriching lives

Aside from flexible career skills, arts education also benefits people in everyday life. A willingness to experiment and problem solve is vital to many aspects of life, from organizing your household, cooking delicious food, communicating with friends and family or even developing fulfilling hobbies.

As mental health is becoming better understood, the balance arts provide for some is invaluable. The arts cultivate empathy, cultural understanding, and creative thinking, fostering well-being, empowerment, and a deeper appreciation of the human experience.

Benefits of arts exposure is not limited to individuals, as engagement with public arts projects creates a sense of belonging and community. Art nurtures and enhances problem-solving skills, and encourages innovation. Perhaps bringing people together to spark new business or social enterprise.

A more colourful, creative life experience

Irrespective of whether a student goes on to practice art as an element of their career, learning the fundamental skills associated with the arts is beneficial in all aspects of life, both working and personal. Lifelong learning of any kind enriches and enhances experiences not only in the direct area of study, but across all aspects of human experience.

Visual storytelling starts for most people with picture books when they’re children. Images form an integral part of the story message. The images and text combine, creating evocative messaging to resonate both intellectually and emotionally.

Visual storytelling is the essence of graphic design. Graphic designers take information and present it in a way that makes sense, tells a story. In today’s media landscape, visual storytelling is increasingly complex, with various mediums to communicate through. Effective and cohesive visual storytelling must work across print and digital media, including static and video or animation formats.

With a more complex environment, and an increasingly crowded marketplace, it is important for brands to create consistent, engaging and relevant visual material. To be able to cut through the white noise, a brand must stand out with unique, compelling visual stories.

Imagery – especially video – can convey much more in a few seconds then a headline ever could. Video stories are dense communications, while also being simple for a viewer to decode. Consistent branding and brand story allows for a whole ethos to be communicated through a short video, viewed in context. The viewer needs to bring less knowledge to the interaction.

Entertainment value

Successful and engaging visual storytelling leans more heavily towards emotions and entertainment than product information. An example KRD worked on is the #LikeABosch campaign for BSH Home Appliances – where videos created by the Bosch Gobal team combine humor and product interaction to create engaging social media advertising material. The campaign also allowed for still imagery to be taken from the videos to use across various print and outdoor advertising sites for consistent visual storytelling. The #LikeABosch campaign was produced in Germany, and adapted by KRD to local market requirements. Global campaigns for BSH have flexibility for in-country modification.

The #LikeABosch messaging is a parody of “Like a Boss”, which itself is a parody by comedy hip hop troupe The Lonely Island, of a song by hip hop artist Slim Thug. The campaign draws upon the comedy credentials of the parody it is parodying – so has layers of meaning and cultural reference which go a way to explaining the more outlandish ‘stunts’, like the toddler with a bottle throwing it into the dishwasher. If you want to see the original parody, there are clean and explicit versions available on YouTube.

Visual storytelling has the ability to reach multi-lingual audiences, as it is not reliant on words. The #LikeABosch campaign was produced in many languages worldwide which meant that the humor was conveyed as a whole – however there are enough sight-gags to still be entertaining without sound and language.

By using parody, the #LikeABosch campaign was able to capitalize on trending themes, and stand out in a crowded marketplace. At the same time, the humor of the clips stands alone for audiences who are not familiar with the existing parody.

Visual storytelling is at the core of what we do as graphic designers. It is not limited to motion graphics, or story books. Every piece of graphic design work produced is a vehicle for storytelling – communicating a message. Video marketing allows us to add layers to the messaging that may be limited across other mediums. How effectively this message is conveyed is the measure of successful visual storytelling.