Visual Communication

I found the range of connections within this week’s reading to be very interesting. In this I mean what I was able to connect it with in terms of my knowledge of visual communication, within education, and in technology.

Drawing mainly from George’s “From Analysis to Design Visual Communication on the Teaching of Writing”, I find it interesting the range of what can be considered “visual”. Indeed within the context of a composition class, you may think of pictures, advertisements, or videos, but George makes a note that in fact there is more to visual than that. From the fact that letters and words are in fact a visual thing, symbols representing something to us and conveying meaning, to the overall design and layout of a webpage, a document, or a piece of art, visual can cover many different aspects of communication.

While discussing a little of the history of the use of visuals in classrooms, George comments several times on the fact that including visuals in text affects the range of the audience that can perhaps understand it. She comments on how visuals added to the Writing with Purpose textbook were viewed by some as a “dumbing down” based on “lowered evaluation of its audience abilities.” (George, 19) In some ways I can agree with this, in that an image might be easier for a more diverse audience to grasp because it transcends the use of one particular language as well as any level of descriptive words that might not be known to all readers. A picture or even something visual such as a graph is designed to communicate by literally showing rather than telling. I feel it might be in some ways offensive to label a textbook with more images as “dumbed down” for the masses not as eloquent in language. While the images paired with the text do make it more visual appealing to students, the pictures, graphs, or charts can supplement the text with an organization that cannot always be gained by linearity. Not everyone can understand things in a linear or “telling” with words type of way. In some instances, those who cannot read or focus on the block of words may not be as intelligent, but this goes much deeper than that. George also writes that “…assignments linked to images carried with them a call for relevance, the need to make this dull required class more interesting, and the suggestion that less verbal students would perhaps succeed with picture where they could not with words.” (George, 21)

Expressivism

I would also like to comment on the comment George made about how this sort of method of teaching with both verbal and visual elements uses “expressive pedagogies” which I believe people sometimes take less seriously. (George, 22) In implying that a mode of teaching follows an expressivist path, I feel like people automatically devalue it. This stems from the cultural norm that the analytical and scientific mind takes precedence. Visual communication or for example, art which communicates a message, is devalued for its personal or self-expressive nature.

 

I think that visual communication and teaching with visuals has come a long way and yet has not even begun to push at the boundaries of what is possible with the developing technologies. From what was possible in design on a computer screen 20 years ago to the design today, there is no comparison. I am skeptical again at what I see as a binary between what is right and what is not right, visual communication vs. verbal/written communication.

I would like to conclude with a very conclusive sounding quote from George in which I believe she makes it clear her view on visual communication as a whole:“Certainly there is the message in much of this work that images may be useful…but they are no substitute for the complexity of language.” (George, 22)

Works Cited

George, Diana. (2002) “From Analysis to Design Visual Communication on the Teaching of Writing”. CCC, 54(1), 11-39. PDF.