Visual Grammar by rendyonata on emaze

The Grammar of Visual Design
Gunter Kress & Theo Van Leeuwen

Aims of Visual Grammar

To develop a ‘grammar’ of images, the first exploring this aim in an analysis and 51 discussion of images in children’s educational literature, and the second continuing and extending this exploration to more generalised images drawn from public media sources such as advertisements, magazine articles, maps, art images and various kinds of diagrams.

They draw an analogy with language, noting that others working in visual semiotics before them have tended to concentrate on what could be described as the ‘lexis’ rather than the ‘grammar’ of images, in that they have concentrated on the meaning projected by the individuals, scenes and objects portrayed within images rather than the connected meanings

In every piece of visual design, or sign, two participants are involved:
1. Interactive - the participant in act of communication
2. Represented - the subject of communication

Interactive Participant - The viewer and the US military recruiting office

Represented Particiapant - Personification of patroitism, known as Uncle Sam

By using Michael Halliday's Metafunction Theory, Kress and van leeuwen argue that visual design is its own semiotic system by being:

1. Ideational - Represents aspects of the 'experiential' world
2. Interpersonal - Takes part in interaction between sign-makers and sign-readers
3. Textual - Makes sense both within internally and externally

The Grammar of Visual Design
Gunter Kress & Theo Van Leeuwen