Cop Lecture 1: Visual Literacy

Visual literacy means to construct meaning from a visual image; to interpret, negotiate and make meaning presented in the form of the image. This means you can play with pre-formed associations (e.g. the toilet symbol can be manipulated, as people already have an ingrained perception of what it already means.) 

In fact symbols can change meaning because of the context surrounding them, for example colour can be a large indicator. The different blocks of colour in flags can make a huge difference to how we perceive them. Age can also be a significant factor in the different associations we have for symbols, which needs to be considered when designing something.

For language to exist there needs to be an agreement amongst a group of people that one thing can stand for something. Indicating that practically a symbol or colour needs to have some significance and cannot be random. This idea was developed in our ligature task, that a symbol usually must have certain connection to its meaning.

Actually visual literacy is the relationship between the visual syntax and visual semantics. Visual syntax means the organisation of elements used to create the image, whereas visual semantics is about how an image fits into the cultural process of communication. This shows that the design of an image must be composed to communicate. Other useful vocabulary:

-Semiotics: study of sign and sign processes.

-Visual Synecdoche: An aspect of something to represent the whole (e.g. the statue of liberty is used to represent New York.)

-Visual Metonym: How a symbolic image can represent the literal meaning (e.g. how a yellow cab can be used to conjure the literal image of New York.)

-Visual metaphor: To transfer meaning from one image to another. Something unfamiliar associated with something familiar (e.g. using word association.)

I believe at the core of visual literacy there is an emphasis on using the associations we already have to work new meanings into them. For example there was a 1970s ad campaign for New York where an apple was used to create a healthy association for the city. A preconception can subtly be used for a new understanding- “work the metaphor.”