The caracter and content of visual literacy Composition: synthetical guidelines for visual literacy.

Basic elements of visual communication Anatomy of visual message The dynamics of contrast The visual techniques: the communication strategies The synthesis of visual style The visual arts: funtion and the message Visual literacy: how and why?

Meaning in visual message is not onlu cumulative effects of arregements of the basic elements but also in the perception mechanism that is universally shared by the human organism. We create a design out of many colors, shapes and textures and tones and relative proportions: we relate theses elements interactively: we intend meaning. This process is divided in two steps: Seeing and design or making are independent for both meaning in a general sense or responding a specific case of communication. Between in general sense: mood, ambience of visual information. Primarily, the act of seeing involves a response to light. The most important and necessary in the visual experience is tonal. All the others the visual elements are revealed to us through to light. We indentifie is: line, color, shape, direction, texture, scale, dimension. Wich elements dominate wich visual statements is determined by the nature of what is being designed or, in the case of nature, what exists. Those variations dependes on the artists subjectivety expression through emphasis certain elements over others.

Much what we know about the interaction on visual meaning is drawn from the research and experimentation in Gestalt psychology, but the Gestalt thinking has more to offer than just the relationship between psychophysiological phenomena and visual expression. Using the basic visual components as a means for the knowledge and understanding of either complete categories of visual media or individual works is na excellent method for exploration of their potential realized sucess in expression.

We express and receive visual messages on three levels: representationnally (what we see and recognize from enviroment and experience; abstractly (the kinesthic quality of visual event reduced to the basic elemental visual components; symbolically (vasted world of coded symbol systems wich man has created arbitrarily. All these levels of information retrieval are interconnected and overlapping, but can be sufficiently distinguished from each other. We learn instinticvely and intelectually, much of learning processing is visual. Sight is the only necessity for visual understanding

The strongest control of visual effects lies in the understanding of connection between message and meaning and visual techniques. contrast and harmony