The main purpose of people read
documents is catching up the current information and events such as education,
lifestyle, fitness, health and so on. Hence, the message delivery to readers
and viewers would affect readers’ mindset. Therefore, as a document designer,
must have highest ethical responsibility standards in designing documents.
According to Shriver (1997) as an
ethical responsibility document designer, should provide the text together with
prose and graphics to satisfy readers’ interests, desires and needs. Shriver
further stated as a document designer, should understand what prose and
graphics should or should not include in documents. Some pictures and text
might clash in different society.
This is the example is about Coca-Cola had
banned in Egypt due to cultural clash.
(Source : flixya.com)
Western visual
communication is start from left to right whereas Eastern visual communication
is start from right to left. Hence, when ‘Coca-Cola’ logo read from right to
left in Arabic script, it would be presented other meaning. It read as ‘no
Mohammed, no Mecca’( ebooks.narotama, n.d).
However,
based to Reep (1997) as an ethical responsibility document designer , designer
need to concentrate about visual presentation such as size and arrangement of
text , pictures, and layout should present in readable and simplicity to
capture reader’s sense of sight. Besides, text and picture do give same meaning.
The picture below had shown words
and picture do not support each other. It might confuse viewer.
Reference List:
Ebooks.narotama, n.d,
‘Global Cultural Environment and Buying
Behavior’ viewed 5 November 2012,
Reep, DC 2006, 'Principles of document design', in
Technical writing, 6th edn, Pearson Edu, Inc., New York.
Schriver, KA 1997, "Dynamics in document design",
John Wiley & Sons, New York.
