Understanding The “Hybrid” Media In Design Education

Abstract

The digital transformation of moving images in the last 30 years has resulted with revolutionary impact on art and design fields. The increasing use of digital technologies for creating design and artwork with moving images has united many disciplines such as graphic design, photography, painting, cinematography, animation, three-dimensional visualization and typography, so that the moving image is no longer pure. According to Manovich, the combination of different disciplines within moving image has created a “hybrid” media where the different image layers are interacting with each other and this interaction is not only in the slight transition between different image layers, but also the transition between the production techniques and conceptual representations of them. The shifting from real to hybrid images provides many opportunities for creative solutions, but then the designer becomes more dependent on digital technologies. However the “hybrid” media and visual language should keep evolving and transforming as a combination of different disciplines, so that the design education perspective should move from software-based education to the new visual aesthetics. Thereby the creative solutions offered by the software will turn into new challenges and design experiences. This paper aims to explore the understanding of “hybrid” media’s visual language in design education through the frame of basic and new design principles.