Visual Literacy

Visual literacy is the ability to interpret and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image.One may ask well what exactly does that mean? After never using photoshop until EME 2040 I learned by using visual literacy it is using a piece of your imagination. For example in class our professor showed us a picture of a monkey and throughout the slide show that monkey appeared on the beach, the Eiffel tower, just about anywhere you can name. And how that monkey got there was by cropping the monkey out of your own photo or a cited photo and to use photoshop techniques and piece together images that you will like to see your image perform. While it may sound easy there are certainly a lot of steps you will need to learn as a first time user. But shortly after you will get the hang of it and it will be a piece of cake! A great quote that I read from our visual learning e-Reading online is "The image survives the subject and becomes the remembered reality." (John Szarkowski). By exploring a photo through one lens it will install that image in your head and explore beyond just a photo.

As an advertising major I can find great use of visual literacy because visual literacy catches the eye of the people and that is exactly what my job intails. Trying to promote a product that viewers will remembered! Such as coca-cola commercial or billboard, I can design an image or slides of the coca-cola bottle and place it with people at the beach or people enjoying a refreshing coke float with their family at home. Visual literacy allows me to design an image that I want people to capture, a photo cant always have exactly what you want in all the time but being able to play around with a photo you can portray the exact image you are looking for. So certainly applying visual literacy to promote my advertisement will come in handy in the future.


I chose an YouTube that captures the great understanding of what visual literacy is and why it is so important. It explains to us that we all the see the world differently through one eye but lets see the world through one lens together and find the true meaning of the image is trying to capture. Don't just scan pictures, look at the expressions of the peoples' face and trying to feel like you are in their shoes even if the picture takes place accross the world. So, take a look at this video and look beyond just the image!