Visual+Literacy

Visual Literacy is a term that means very much what it sounds like, but also more: it describes both the ability to comprehend meaning from an image or images, as well as the ability to convey meaning using images. Therefore, visual literacy refers to both those giving, and those receiving, the intended information. In this assignment, we learned about the classification of images - decorative, representative, organizational, interpretive, and transformational - as well as the standards of images intended for communication. Those standards include ACE - analyze, create, and evaluate - and PAT, which stands for principles, actions, and tools. It is important when using images to convey meaning to understand what is effective and what is not; if unaware of these things, one may not only be ineffective, but also might even hinder learning rather than encourage it. In this assignment, we examined an image, and analyzed what about it was effective, and what was not; this experience will absolutely be beneficial to me as a future teacher. Images of all sorts are used in education, and without an understanding of what works and what does not, a teacher might be making things far more difficult for themselves as well as their students. On the other side of that, too, is the realization that students also need to understand visual literacy and how to successfully incorporate images into their work; as a teacher, it is, of course, my responsibility to help them gain that understanding. --- After only one read-through of this visual, I feel that I understand its purpose: it is illustrating that Americans are “overproteined” by providing a few statistics regarding how much meat Americans eat. As far as design goes, it is a fairly decent graphic; following the PAT template, the principles are acceptable: there seems to be no hierarchy, but the black part of the box containing the Overproteined title does encompass the four smaller boxes that have the statistics listed in them. I like the actions used, specifically the theme of center alignment; it is not enough information to merit a different type of alignment, and by using the center alignment, the image conveys that the information in each text block is of equal importance to the others. As well, the contrast in background color is enough to signify a change in information, but not so different as to imply that any one box contains information that is more important than any other. With regard to tools, I appreciate the consistency with typography, and how the titles are emboldened, but the text itself is not; if everything were bold, it would be too “loud” an image, but if the titles themselves were not, they would appear to be of less importance. By making the titles bold, it draws the reader’s eye to those titles, but they are not so big that one forgets to read the information that is underneath each title. Additionally, I liked the use of images – however, I did feel that the chick was a bit out of place, as the other three images were all of fatty fast food. Perhaps the chick was meant to stir an emotional reaction, such as a feeling of guilt at eating something that was once so cute. Finally, there were only two improvements that I would make to this visual, the first being that while the statistics are well-organized and presented, there is no information to alert the reader as to why these numbers are so bad. What does “overproteined” mean (to someone who may not know), and why/how do these statistics describe it? Of course, if this visual were used in a presentation of information containing answers to those questions, it may not be needed in this particular image; however, if not, there could be something added to give just a little bit of explanation. My other complaint is a minor one, and that is that I simply do not find the visual all that attractive. It does not necessarily pop off of the page, and does not immediately intrigue me. However, as I said before, it does a good job of conveying its message (for the most part), and thus is, in most categories, a successful visual.

- Elizabeth Croswhite, 4/30/2012