Visual+Literacy

Visual Literacy is something that I feel everyone does without knowing it. Every person looks at signs and pictures and our eyes are extremely essential in everyday life when it comes to visual literacy. When we look at a visual, we always see something and we notice specific things about the visual. The aspect of visual literacy that does not come to everyone are the specific ideas within it. Visual literacy is composed of many specific ways to look at visuals and see what they are telling you. The principles are a huge part of analyzing visuals the correct way. ACE and PAT are necessary in the process in order to fully understand what you are looking at and why it was created that way.



This visual is clearly trying to let us know that Americans as a whole eat way too much protein. It includes pictures of the famous “American” foods such as the Big Mac, hot dogs, and KFC. These are all a part of the fast food craze that the United States has. This visual gives the perception that the U.S. is overweight as a whole and it’s true. They made sure to use the words American or U.S in each description and made sure that the insanely high numbers are bolded and at the top of the visual. The designer also made sure to use product placement in the visual by placing the two most well known fast foods at the top and the other two at the bottom. This has a hierarchal effect on the visual and makes you focus on those two statistics, which are the largest and most disturbing. The designer also does a great job of using proximity to keep the viewers eyes focused on the statistics. He uses great tools to keep the viewer looking around the picture at each aspect of it. Some examples of the tools are bolding the letters and the placement of pictures and how the pictures flow from left top to bottom right. The visual makes you want to read and follow the whole thing. The designer wanted everyone to see the entire visual and not miss any stat or idea. He/she used the PAT principles very well and expressed that Americans eat too much protein!