Introduction: A Potential Re-examination of Message Design
In the images found in the caves at Lascaux, France, several principles related to visual communication can be observed: the use of representational imagery (bulls), the use of color, the arousal of attention through motion, and a focus on specific objectives such as hunting. Viewed nearly 20,000 years after their creation, these images suggest that early humans were already thoughtful and deliberate in how they represented their external world.
It may sound extreme to say this, but when we create visuals today we are working with many of the same elements available to those early image-makers. We may have Photoshop or Sora at our disposal, but we still rely on form, shape, color, contrast, and composition. Any examination of visual communication benefits from being rooted in these common elements and their history. Even in an era of rapidly shifting digital ephemera, there is value in grounding ourselves in what does not change.
For that reason, this inquiry begins in the caves at Lascaux.
The following writing is an attempt to revisit and consolidate a body of earlier research I conducted in visual communication, specifically in an area known as Message Design—a term I hesitate to use because of its relative obscurity. There is a story to be told about where the phrase Message Design originated, how it was used, and where it faded from view. That story may, in fact, be the larger point of this work.
My earlier research was conducted within the context of Message Design, an area I once viewed as the visual communication arm of Instructional Design and Technology. While that framing now seems outdated, I am not entirely certain why it should be.
Moving forward through history from Lascaux, principles of visual communication can be found in ancient Mesopotamian writing systems. Columns were used to organize information visually, spacing improved legibility, lines connected related ideas, and standardized symbols promoted familiarity. By approximately 8000 BCE, two of the central components of message design—images and text—had been established and refined.
Early Examples of Instructional Message Design
It is helpful to clarify that Message Design was fundamentally concerned with instruction. Its task was to apply visual communication principles in ways that supported learning. One of the earliest known examples of intentionally instructional visual messages appears in the work of Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (c. 936–1013 CE), a Spanish Muslim physician.
Al-Zahrawi authored an encyclopedia of medical knowledge intended to instruct apprentices. His illustrations of surgical tools and procedures remain recognizable today, demonstrating the enduring power of clear visual explanation (Hamarneh, 1961).
Johann Amos Comenius, often regarded as a forerunner of modern Message Design, emphasized the central role of sense perception in learning (Goodman, 1954). He argued strongly for the use of pictorial materials to support understanding (Saettler, 2004). In the author’s preface to Orbis Pictus, Comenius famously wrote, “Now there is nothing in the understanding, which was not before in the sense” (p. xiv).
This was the age of empiricism, when thinkers increasingly emphasized the senses as the foundation of knowledge. Visual communication was not an embellishment; it was central to how learning was understood.
One might reasonably argue that visual communication and Message Design no longer need further discussion. Hasn’t this territory already been exhaustively explored? Perhaps. My motivation here, however, is to return to a substantial body of earlier research—over one hundred pages— and to re-engage with ideas that originally captured my attention around 2012. It is also an opportunity to work through this material deliberately and without reliance on AI, allowing the writing and thinking to unfold more slowly.