2--Visual+Literacy



The image above, “Overproteined,” is marginally effective, but only after much review and interpretation. In the terms of the the **ACE** and **PAT** paradigms of image **//__evaluation__//**, “Overproteined” tries to inform but never comes to a clear conclusion. In trying to provide **//__analysis__//**, the data collected here is sterile and does not make any persuasive conclusion. These are statistics which carry no judgement value. If the reader is to use this document, it needs to make clear that there is a vital moral issue at stake and not to heed the message is to risk one’s own and and society’s health. Instead of having to puzzle over the meaning of the image, the viewer should know very quickly what to do with the information in a way that requires little thought. Merely by seeing the image and the information, the viewer should have no alternative but to come to a conclusion based on the data provided. In this case, the central conclusion would be that Americans consume too much protein.

“Overproteined” attempts to **//__create__//** a sense of how much is too much protein. However, it provides numerical data that is not innovative and does not drive the viewer to an inescapable conclusion. Visually, it is not far from simple prose text in paragraph form. In terms of **//__perception__//** and **//__action__//**, the number chart is static and does not show movement beyond what the eye must do in order to read the text from left to right. The **//__tools__//** of composition are not used well at all, either. The title text, “Overproteined,” is overpowered by the images of the hamburger to the left and KFC bucket to the right. These pictures dominate the chart and dwarf the title text to the point that I could not immediately tell what the point of the chart was.

The visuals here are representative, but they also partake of the decorative. Certainly they are not organizational, interpretive, or transformative. On the other hand, we might derive meaning by looking at the chick below the second panel. Reading that eight billion chickens were raised for food each year in the United States and then looking at a cute baby animal, a western urbanite might be forced to conclude he should not eat chicken. In a nearly uninterrupted “reverse N” shape, the reader’s eye might travel from “8” to the chick, diagonally upward to “127” and the KFC bucket. The graphic message, then is that the cute baby animal is transformed through the medium of the informative language into the greasy bucket of foodstuff above and to the right. It almost works with the eye’s natural movement, but the text “127 Chickens eaten per second in America” leaves the reader looking at the left end of the hot dog or maybe back at the chick. The KFC bucket, then, only overshadows the title text so that the reader still is not sure just what the point is.

In fact, a reader with an industrial mind would look at this chart with great admiration. It is a testament to how well our mechanized system makes fast food. A great deal of wealth is being charted here. With such ambiguity, there is no clear conclusion to be gained from this visual document. What would make this document more useful would either be a rearrangement of the hamburger and KFC bucket, a more explicit title that was not overpowered by the images, or images not just of food but of the obesity and sickness that occur when the average American eats this way. Finally, a diagonal arrangement of each text block might be the better alignment. It would create a more natural flow of the eye and imply that eating this way represents a downward slide into ill health. The confusion of which image takes the eye to the next stage would also be minimized.

Below are the notes showing the elements of the **ACE** and **PAT** analysis paradigms and how they are applied to create a critique of a visual document.