Visual culture that reflects environments of a learner is covered by design
education within an art curriculum and the domain of design education is widening
as multi-orientation in visual culture related phenomena becomes diversified. However,
the domain of design education within a curriculum where visual cultures are reflected,
tends to be limited to providing simple resources such as providing basic knowledge,
etc., and shows its limitations in providing frameworks on its ideology which serves
as guideline for building sense of appreciation and understanding. In this study, the
researcher has focused on the commuuications exchanged within the realm of visual
culture and proposed segmentation on classifications and elements which serve as
basis for judgments made by an observer, so that the study may help learners to
inlprove their clitical reasoning by building objective and systematic understandings
in approaching the visual culture.
Commmllcations are conducted in a culture through diversified media. Moreover,
such COl1llllunications as visual cOl1llllunications based on semiotica1 aualysis put emphasis
on transmitting respective meanings through procedural, cultural and grammatical
symbols, and storing and extracting social, psychological and visual meaning innate
in elements. Such symbols as social and psychological elements have their base in
national and social consciousness. In addition, an identical symbol may be recognized
otherwise, depending on the perspective of the observer, following changes in social,
econonllcal and cultural envirOllllents. As meaning and value of a visual symbol change
depending on the background on creation of snch visual image, or recognition at the
time of observation, thus it is crucial to make judgments by basing on the social and
cultural significance and value, not by basing on the meaning of the visual image
itself alone.
In this study, the researcher has taken procedural, cultural and grammatical
approaches in conducting semiotical analysis on the visual communication proposed
by the study and provided an objective and segmented index that can be used to
understand and interpret visual images. Moreover, the researcher has conducted a
case study on mobile phone, which is a product that is the most closely related to
living environment, and extended its domain from a simple visual unage medium
to complex media comprised of diversified visual image transmission procedures
and cultural environments.