On The Design And Realization Of Visual Communication Systems For Children's Spaces

While nowadays children receive ever more attention and children-related businesses are burgeoning, increasingly demanding requirements are being put on children's spaces and environments. There is a clear trend for the design of children's spaces to focus on conveying their offerings, compositions, features and dynamics to consumers. This article argues the importance of children's spaces to corporate identity, by examining the design and realization process of their visual communication systems.We start by an observation of existing problems for children's spaces, which leads to a conclusion of the necessity and feasibility of visual communication systems.On the basis of a theoretical elaboration of the meaning of such systems, we make a case study on the visual communication system of the Children's Hospital of Hunan Province, examining in detail, in terms of graphic design, the process of creating an integrated visual communication system from initial customer study and market research to bringing up design concepts as well as creative design elements by applying those concepts, all the way to final design implementation and utilization. The necessity of such a visual communication system for children's spaces is explained from the perspective of a designer. Furthermore, this article analyzes the realization process of this system in a graphic design application (Adobe Illustrator). Key techniques and software know-how are explored, and the systematic execution described.The article concludes by a summarization of the development process of the visual communication system under study, and argues that this development process guided by software engineering theories presents a new approach for future design projects of the same nature.