Visual Literacy Summary

Visual Literacy has given me a better understanding of images and has taught me various ways of reading a photograph or picture without referring to the text. Depending on the way someone sees or ‘reads’ something they could see it completely different to another person because it all depends on you as an individual. This means your life can shape your view whether it be your occupation or possibly a hobby or it could even be your life experience which allows you to relate or focus on certain things which someone else may not pick up on. For example a photographer or someone who studies photography can see and point out the obvious and say exactly what they see but then they can expand and can look at an image and see beyond what is right in front of their eyes for example it could be a photograph of a tree. This tree could mean something to this photographer as they look at it and ask themselves questions such as what type of tree is it? Where could this tree be situated? What time of year could it be? (depending on the state of the tree) What is in the background? and then this image begins to form a story behind this tree without having to use any text. It makes you think more about it than it would if something was simply wrote out in front of you to read. A good example of visual literacy is the use of colour, from being born we are taught different colours and then throughout life we understand what they relate to for example; Blue we consider a calm colour reminding us of the sky and the sea, Red we relate to fire, danger and anger but also romance and passion as it is the signature colour of Valentines Day, Yellow is a happy warm colour relating to the sun and summer holidays, Green reminds us of nature, fruit and vegetables and is seen as a healthy colour however green can also represent jealousy. Signs are also used as a way of getting across information quickly and clearly without using little or no text such as road signs, which need to be simple because as you are driving you can’t be trying to read a piece of text telling you what it means. Icons are another vital piece of visual literacy which can be linked with branding when looking at logos. Being a graphic designer our eyes are almost trained to recognise more logos than others because we look at things such as the colours and the fonts. Branding plays a big part in visual literacy when it comes to advertising campaigns, a perfect example being ‘United Colours of Benetton’ who tend to use shock advertising, showing images which do not relate to the products at all which brings up the question are they trying to make you aware of these world issues? or are they trying to trick you into research them and getting you onto their website, this is a way of reading an image looking at multiple choices, asking questions and seeing it for more rather than just accepting it as an advert. In conclusion after looking at visual literacy into depth I realise that people are different in the way they read images and also how advertising campaigns can be very inconsiderate in the way they use their advertisements to promote themselves but then again depending who it is will depend on how these campaigns mould your mind and allow you to make your own opinion. Visual Literacy really plays on the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.