How do you get to the heart of what it is you do, and why it matters?
How can you use language and images in unexpected ways to successfully articulate this core truth to your audience?
As a current student of Cheryl Heller’s in the Design for Social Innovation program at SVA, I am excited to hear her address these questions and more in her workshop on Communication Design at SEBC.
What is communication design?
Cheryl defines it as both the invisible system of beliefs and messages that form our world views, and the individual expressions and behaviors that reflect them.
More simply, it is about finding “the truths that move people.”
Excellent communication design can propel an organization forward, and even the best business concepts can fall apart without it. In an over-stimulated, hyper-informed world, being able to distinguish yourself relies first and foremost on how you communicate your value – as an entrepreneur, organization, or business - to your audience. To SEBC, Cheryl brings years of experience as a communication designer, business strategist, and social innovator.
Founder of Heller Communication Design, Cheryl has pioneered approaches that center on understanding, connecting, and building trust with audiences, and the success of this approach speaks for itself in the work she has done for companies such as the World Wildlife Foundation and Seventh Generation.
She leads by example, as a mentor for the PopTech fellows and as Chair of the new Design for Social Innovation MFA program at SVA. At PopTech, Cheryl has helped a number of young innovators and entrepreneurs find their identity and voice, and move forward confidently with their vision. The communication course she teaches at DSI is a runaway favorite, with general consensus being that there is often as much to be learned from watching Cheryl present as there is from the content. Her lectures offer layers of useful frameworks, references, and examples, peppered with humor and bitingly accurate assessments of what works, what doesn’t, and why.
Her presentation is not to be missed.
Links to other talks by Cheryl:
What is Design for Social Innovation?
Disruptive Heroes: Cheryl Heller
Heller Communication Blog