I read a lot of the ideas being presented here by Dondis again through the lens of other mediums. Their point that only in visual communication is content undetachable from form felt odd since I don’t know a medium of communication where this is not true. What did strike me as unique to the visual is the same idea that McCloud presented, that it holds a lot of immediate power, “visual thinking is not a delayed system.” Since there is a lot to be discovered in the meaning of a work as it is investigated, I wonder how the difference between the immediate reaction and the developed one can be used to evoke certain realizations. This obviously isn’t that applicable if you need the audience to understand the message on first glance, but for art I see how this can be a technique that is more unique to the visual medium than others.

Sequentiality and Randomness These principles are similar to predictability and spontaneity, and I think are most interesting to me when used together. When a pattern is formed in one part of the composition, but broken later it brings a certain weight that comes from breaking an expectation.

Understatement and Exaggeration Understatement is interesting to me because of the contradiction it brings, the element is given less visual weight for the purpose of giving it more meaning, which I think can speak to ideas of invisibility, feeling undervalued, or being at the margins.