Visual Symbols in Daily Life, Part 2

There has been an incentive over the course of the semester to find the coolest and best use of technology or visuals for the week. These posts ranged from film clips and trailers to poetry and music to skits and still images. Our ideas of visual literacy were expanding, and we used themes to enrich each other. Whether it was perusing classmates' blogs or creating informational visuals for presentations, I was having a good time.

Some clips were for fun:
The Crater Face Video,
Minimalism - Kinetic Typography Poem
The Red Balloon (below),

Some were informative:
15 Sexist Vintage Ads,
Sir Ken Robinson speaks on Creativity (below),

-but all were cool new ways of expressing and understanding what the author, composer, or speaker is visually presenting to their audience.

My terms of Visual symbols have expanded over the semester to include: poetry, body movement, non-verbal cues and the use of words as graphics (to name a few). I understand why visuals within presentations and art are used and when it is appropriate to use them with an audience. I learned about means of using visuals such as propaganda and video games to creatively enhance a message.

I feel that without visuals or teaching the world to be visually literate, our communication and education would be greatly lacking in emotion and depth and we would be less comprehensive to our audiences. And I also think its our job to expand means of visually communicating, while assisting others to understand them correctly. We're bombarded daily with images and data, if we're not reading them correctly, we could be missing something important!