Word & Image

source: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2010/1/tweet-shovel-ready-too-big-to-fail-get-thee-behind-us-banished-word

 Sadly, I missed the lecture with the guest speaker on comics because I was sick, but I want to write this blog post about the importance of word and image.  This school year, we have focused a lot on comics using McCloud’s book “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” to see how comics are first of all, a serious art form, and also, how design is visual communication.  There is a narrative storytelling within comics that engages the reader with pictures along side words to create an in depth tale.  Visual literacy can be explained as the ability to interpret and make meaning of an image.  This visual literacy happens every day with all the images the human mind takes in, but with comics, the literacy is increased to an easier level by the aid of words.  The interpretation of the images presented to us is made clearer by the written words.  For example, when a drawn picture of a man in black and white is put in front of us, we can see, yes, this is a man.  However, when there is a bubble above his head saying, “I wonder what I should have for lunch today,” we can then understand that this is not only a picture of a man, but this certain man is having thoughts.  Not only are the man’s thoughts about something that is very “every day”, but also the reader is about to relate to the man because lunch has to be made all the time.  When word is placed next to image, the image is heighten to a level of deeper understanding.