I thought Dondis’s paper was a great overview of visual literacy. I was left thinking about the following 2 elements.

  1. DIRECTION → I’d never give too much thought to the 3 directions (horizontal+vertical, diagonal, curve). I always knew color had hidden emotion meanings, but I never realized that direction did too. It made me think of communicative logos.
    1. But it makes sense that horizontal+vertical = stability and well being → a logo that reminds me of this is Microsoft Windows
    2. Diagonal = challenging / almost upsetting → Nike swoosh for Just Do It
    3. Curve = encompassment, repetition → United Nations logo
  2. MOVEMENT → I frequently work with graphs + data visualizations. Dondis make the point that the human eye scans the environment for visual information in an unconscious process of left → right, top → bottom. I thought about all the roadmap / system diagram that I had developed. And I realized that they all follow a linear pattern (even if there were interdependent functions that weren’t linearly dependent). It made me question → what are nonlinear / unconventional ways to communicate movement?