Visual+Literacy

I have familiarized myself with visual literacy and found that it is everywhere now days. It is on the back of busses and even on cars. It is almost everywhere I turn. Understanding this made me realize that our students are exposed to the same images and information. They are getting so much information at all times and it is my job as a future educator to help them understand the visuals they are exposed to everyday. This assignment also helped me with being able to analyze and create my own visuals.  Visual Literacy Assignment

After you familiarize yourself with visual literacy and visual design principles, it’s time for you to do some practice. Please use the visual design principles you have learned (PAT model) to criticize the following visual from your own perspective (about 200 – 300 words). Your critic should include 1) your interpretation of the visual message 2) the overall design in terms of PAT model (positive and negative), and 3) the improvement of the visual if there is any to enhance the effectiveness of convening the message to the audience 1. This situational visual is trying to get the point across that Americans over consume protein. It is giving statistics or information to the viewer with images, and text or type. Each set of type is aligned in close proximity. The color and images used in the visual help to contrast it and help the repetition from being too boring. The type in the center draws my attention to the middle of the visual, but at first glance I was a little confused as to what I was looking at. Only when I began reading did I understand the visual. The colors are very pastel and do not draw in my attention as fast as if they were highlighted to be a little brighter. Maybe the text can be different colors to help make the information stand out a little more. The information in the visual was informative so that part came across in the visual, and each image, such as the hot dog, tied into what was being said in the text. Which is what makes the visual understandable after analyzing it. The information in the end explained gave a visual of how much protein is consumed in the U.S. 2. According to the power point in, Dr. Hsin-Te (Chuck) Yeh’s EDT 3010 class for summer 2010, PAT stands for “Perceptions, Actions, and Tools. Perceptions are figure-ground, hierarchy, and gestalt. Actions are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Tools are type, shape, color, depth, and space.” The overall design of the model could be improved. The perceptions regarding the figure and gestalt are a little weird at first. The gestalt actually makes the figure-ground a little easier to understand. The images of food are placed on the visual in a way that makes the viewer look at the images before reading the information. The actions are set up pretty well which is what make this visual work. The contrast of colors helps make the visual easy to look at. The repletion of the text division works well. The alignment of the title above the text helps the viewer understand what the text is going to be about. The proximity could be worked on when it comes to the images. I feel that the images create a cluster around the text which makes it a little busy at first glance. The tools can definitely be improved in the model. The type can be larger which will help it stand out. The shape is small. The color can be brighter. The depth and space can be improved by moving the images around a little and making it a little less crowded.

3. I would improve this visual by using different color, text style, font and size. I feel the size is small. The images can be placed in a circle around the text or maybe they can have a comic book bubble of the images so that the words are not surrounded by images. I think this would make the visual a little more clear and easy to read or understand.