Book excerpt: Essentials of Visual Communication is an inspiring and uniquely accessible guide to visual communication.The book presents the major disciplines in today's media, and puts theory into practice, explaining how to achieve a strong communication chainfrom strategy and messages to design and influencesto reach the target audience. This book will be invaluable for anyone wanting to communicate through the use of images and text, and in particular for students, whether in the fields of graphic design, advertising, editorial design, journalism, new media, information technology, mass communication, photography, film, or televisionin fact, any discipline that seeks to deliver a message through words and pictures. Essentials of Visual Communication is illustrated throughout with up-to-date examples of best practicefrom around the world that help to put visual theory into context. Summary boxes make it ideal for revision and reference.