Visual language skills – do business students need them

The use of visual images is an effective means not only to communicate with but also to elicit emotions from and to influence the masses. Present-day computer tools have removed the need for specialized equipment and personnel for the design and preparation of visual images. With globalization and the increasingly visual economy, there is an urgent need to develop visual literacy skills in business students. This paper discusses the cognitive benefits of learning the visual language. Through the experience from a general elective course at Nanyang Technological University, it studies the pedagogical approaches to the nurturing of visual language skills in undergraduates. Specially highlighted are the outcomes of the business students’ performance which were found to be very promising. Although nearly all of them had no background in the visual art prior to taking this course, the majority of them have the innate ability to acquire the basic concepts of the visual language and to apply these effectively in their design projects. Two of these projects are illustrated in this paper as examples of students’ works. This paper concludes with a reflection on the urgency for the training in visual language for our future workforce to compete in the new age.Published versio