OUGD401 - Visual Literacy - Lecture 2

Visual Literacy - The Language of Design

The lecture itself explains that we cannot presume anything in design and we must question the obvious. It is our job to communicate, we must solve the problems of communication using concept, design and meaning to portray a message. It is our role as young designers to ensure that my work is as effective as it can be. When discussing visual literacy, there is the idea of visual communicating which is a process of sending and receiving messages using only image. For visual communication to work, there has to be a common language between the audience. In the same way that we have developed skills of literacy in the written world in subjects such as English, we must learn, in the same way, to develop a set of visual language skills which can deliver and portray messages. Visual literacy however, unlike written language, can be understood on a global level which is why we must learn about, and understand other cultures so that our work can relate on a global scale. On a daily basis we use visual literacy to interpret simple signs such as road or toilet signs, we associate masculine and feminine colours to interpret which door of the toilet is male and which is female. These basic signs look in no way what a human being looks like however we have learned these signs throughout our life. This shows that pictures or symbols can be read globally almost as a second language.
For visual communication to happen, there has to be an agreement between different groups of people that one image can interpreted in the same way. We need to understand as designers that certain symbols or pictures have multiple meanings. We need to learn that what we can introduce to the symbol can change a audiences interpretation of the meaning behind it. For example by changing the colour of a simple cross from black to red, we have changed the meaning to be the English flag.

We also looked at visual syntax, i was already quite aware of the meaning of syntax due to reading Vignellis Canon However, we were given multiple visual examples which helped me better understand the idea behind visual syntax. Its the idea that the building blocks behind an image such as layout or text, are the simple tools which we use as designers to create an appealing image. The visual semantics refer to the cultural process of communication. it is the thing that we must understand about different cultures, religious groups and age groups to create successful work directed at the preferred target audience. Semoitics is the study of signs and symbols and the process which we interpret those. We then looked at visual synecdoches, metonyms and metaphors which relate to recognizing certain places by just looking at landmarks which relate to the area or objects which relate to a specific country or area.