Eleven Videos. In a verbal world, culture is primarily expressed and recorded with words; and of course, those who master words become the primary spokespeople and builders of that culture. Our growing understanding of Visual Communication, however, is reconsidering the privilege of words.
In a visual world, image construction and visual design gain equality, and forms of visual expression gain communicative currency. Font design is a perfect example of this transformation. Individual letters grouped together communicate words and ideas, but they also communicate other notions with their visual form and design. But, this can also be performed badly.
In our mediated world of endlessly streaming images, visual literacy is vital to deciphering the visual languages surrounding us. For instance, most everything within your field of vision has been designed by someone. But what do these things communicate – what is being said? (One example: What is the communcative intention of the images of the female breasts in this video blog?)
Television, like so much of the world around us, is a visual medium. It is a medium where words say one thing, but the accompanying images often communicate something entirely different. But what? Here is the problem: Do TV designers understand the language of their images? If so, how can so many visual designers communicate so badly? This issue is becoming so wide-spread, it is now one of the primary problems of modern tele-visuality? Watch TV more critically, and learn to read the language of mediated images, especially when presented badly.
Consider visual literacy and grow better media communication.
15/05/07