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Full Download PDF of (Ebook PDF) Visual Literacy Workbook: For Graphic Design and Fine Art Students All Chapter
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Visual Literacy
Workbook
For Graphic Design and Fine Art Students
David Moyer
Brian Flynn
Pennsylvania College of Technology
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
987654321
Printed by LSC Communications, United States of America
19 CHAPTER 4 Color
Additive Color, Color Spectrum, Cool Colors, Color Temperature, Color Wheel, Four Aspects of
Color, Hue, Primary Colors, Saturation, Secondary Colors, Shading, Subtractive Color, Tertiary
Colors, Tinting, Value, Toning, Warm Colors
27 CHAPTER 6 Balance
Asymmetrical Balance, Axis of Symmetry, Formal Balance, Hierarchy of Visual Weight, Horizontal
Balance, Informal Balance, Near-Symmetrical Balance, Pictorial Hierarchy of Visual Weight,
Symmetrical Balance, Typographic Hierarchy of Visual Weight, Vertical Balance, Vertical Axis of
Symmetry, Visual Weight
37 CHAPTER 8 Proportion
Diagonal of a Square, Dynamic Rectangles, Dynamic Symmetry, Golden Section Rectangle, Half
Diagonal, Long Rectangle, Proportion, Ratio, Rectangle, Root Rectangles, Square
vii
viii Contents
140 BIBLIOGRAPHY
141 CREDITS
145 INDEX
Contents ix
Preface
Visual Literacy Workbook was developed from teaching our Visual Literacy course as
part of the foundations curriculum in the Graphic Design program at Pennsylvania
College of Technology. Visual Literacy was newly developed to serve as an introduction
to the study of design. Our students had started their foundation studies with Two-
Dimensional Design, a course in which the formal exploration of design theory and
practice is heavily tilted to the abstract. Understanding design theory while putting
it into practice can be a tall order for a first-semester freshman. The new course was
conceived as a bridge to the world of design and has in practice greatly increased student
success in the competition and quality of work in our foundations courses.
The Analysis Outline serves as a conceptual armature for the course and, by extension,
the Visual Literacy Workbook. The Outline provided a basic structure for the book,
there being a very close relationship between chapter content order in the book and the
Outline. The Analysis Outline guides the student through a process of written reflections
of visual imagery. This approach to the subject grew out of an in-class process of
identifying design and content elements in projected visual imagery. The process
became one of discovery for the students and instructors, generating a lot of enthusiasm
for the subject matter.
In addition to the exploration of design theory and visual content, the analysis
process served to bridge the gap between representational and abstract imagery. Design
students all too often are only able to apply their formal knowledge in an abstract
visual environment. The ability to perceive one’s surroundings in its formal qualities
is extremely important for the artist and designer and can take considerable time to
develop. Through focusing on representational imagery, the Analysis Outline has
accelerated the student’s development of an abstracting vision.
The individual sections of the Analysis Outline in Part I were developed from design
theory, and a procedure that promotes careful observation of design elements as a
prerequisite for reaching conclusions about a visual image. The Outline sections in
Part II emphasize a similar procedure as an aid to formulating judgments about image
content. Through the process of teaching the Visual Literacy course, the Outline sections
have been modified with additions or subtractions in their form as well as adjustments
in their sequencing based on student interaction with the material so as to better guide
students through the learning process.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all our friends and colleagues who have shown their
enthusiasm and given advice and support for this project. In particular, special thanks
to Dr. Tom Ask and Levi Woodward for their publishing advice, our colleagues Keith
Vanderlin and Mark Wilson for their excellent photographic work and the permis-
sion to publish their images. Also, a nod of appreciation is due to my old college friend
clinical psychologist Dr. Jack Dettwyler for reviewing the Gestalt chapter and his loan
of reading material on the subject, and to art historian Dr. Margaretta Frederick for her
encouragement and review of the visual content chapter. Karis Reitzman proofread
the manuscript prior to submission. The following is a list of people who kindly gave
permission to publish their images: Brad Holland, Ainsley Bennett, Meredith Long,
Hailie Montgomery, Andrea Neff, Ashley Tate, Minh Tu, Ed Wong-Ligda, the Enesco
Corporation, and the Odd Nerdrum Museum. Thanks to Joanna Flynn for her support
and our Dean, Dr. Mike Reed, and Assistant Dean, Tom Heffner, for their much appre-
ciated encouragement.
xi
Introduction
xii
19 CHAPTER 4 Color
27 CHAPTER 6 Balance
37 CHAPTER 8 Proportion
40 CHAPTER 9 Structure
Visual Literacy
VOCABULARY We are exposed to an abundance of visual imagery on a daily basis and may easily look
Form: An abstract quality or property but not really see. What is visual literacy?
expressed in matter. Visual Literacy is the ability to see a Visual Image and understand its Form and
Formal Content: Information that relies
Content, much like reading the text of a book or electronic screen. It is not uncommon
on the visual nature of the unit forms and
their interaction.
for artists and designers to talk about reading a visual image. Is the image understand-
Narrative Content: Image that tells able? The visual image is composed of Design Elements or Unit Forms that are the
a story. This may include commercial equivalent of the letter forms, grammar, and syntax of the written text and serve as the
imagery. vessels for communicating the image’s meaning.
Symbolic Content: Visual unit forms
Form is an abstract quality or property expressed in matter. If we compare a grape
represent something beyond their
appearance, that is, a dove represents
and a baseball, we can see that they share the abstract quality of roundness in their
peace. shapes. The quality or property of roundness is being expressed in the matter of the
Unit Form/Design Elements: Visual grape and the baseball (fig. 1.1). In order to understand the form of a visual image, it
elements that comprise the parts of a is necessary to abstract the properties of form from what we see. Matter may express
visual image.
multiple formal qualities. The grape is round in its shape, purple in its pigmentation,
Visual Content: The message communi-
cated by a visual image. It may be formal,
and dark in value.
symbolic, narrative, or a combination of
the three.
Visual Image: A picture that one can see.
Visual Literacy: The ability to see a vis-
ual image and understand its form and
content.
Frame of Reference/Format
Negative Space/Ground
Positive Space/Figure
Figure 2.2a and 2.2b A Basket of Flowers, Jan Brueghel the Younger.
In the top image, the Brueghel still life presents a closed composition with all its elements neatly con-
tained within the picture’s format, making the composition very stable and centralizing areas of focus.
In the image below, the Brueghel still life has been cropped to make an open composition enlivening the
organization of negative space and areas of emphasis.
Figure 2.3 Madame Cézanne, Paul Cézanne Figure 2.4 Man, Paul Klee
Figure 2.5 Small Worlds, Vasily Kandinsky Figure 2.6 Untitled, Arthur Dove
Bell Pepper by Ainsley Bennett is a logo symbol developed through the abstraction and
stylization of a green bell pepper, resulting in a representational but not realistic rendi-
tion of the vegetable. Symbols such as those that represent commercial identities are
designed for extremely short read times, as they are used on such things as billboards,
package designs, and the sides of tractor trailers.
The forms representing the pepper have been stripped of naturalistic detail and
reduced to basic two dimensional shapes. The shapes, while still maintaining their
representational form, have been altered from curvilinear to rectilinear in their con-
tours. The amount of figure to ground is nearly equal, enabling the figure to organize the
ground into complementary shapes. The pepper symbol is composed of a series of three
mutually defining rectilinear shapes alternately repeating themselves from left to right.
O generoso da mão,
O coração varonil,
Onde vos cabe o Brazil,
E sobeja coração:
Com pobres a compaixão,
Com ricos o liberal,
Na amizade tão leal,
Na palavra tão massiço,
Para mim tudo é feitiço,
Sendo tudo natural.
DESPEDE-SE
O P. DA BAHIA QUANDO FOI DEGRADADO PARA ANGOLA
De virtuosa talvez,
E de entendida outro tal;
Introduza-se ao burlesco
Nas casas onde se achar.
Arrime-se a um poderoso,
Que lhe alimente o gargaz,
Que ha pagadores na terra
Tão duros como no mar
Vá visitar os amigos
No engenho de cada qual,
E comendo-os por um pé
Nunca tire o pé de lá.
No Brazil a fidalguia
No bom sangue nunca está,
Nem no bom procedimento:
Pois logo em que póde estar?
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