Visual+Literacy


 * My Reflection**

Overall, I think that this image is trying to communicate the fact that people eat too much meat. It displays fast food in the corners of the image, and then informs its reader of several statistics regarding how much food Americans eat. I think this image does a good job of keeping things simple, and conveying an interesting amount of information relatively quickly.

As far as the design of the image is concerned, it follows our PAT model quite well. Regarding the perception of the image, I see a lot of "heirarchy" and "gestalt." The eye is directed in a downward path, from the burger and KFC logo at the top to the statistics and the little yellow bird/hot dog at the bottom. Regarding the actions of the image, there appears to be a lot of alignment and proximity. The food items/KFC logo, etc. are in very close proximity to the statistics that the image is used to inform the reader about. There is also an element of repetition, as the scheme/look of the chart is relatively consistent. One can easily follow the flow of the image side to side as they read the statistics, as well as up and down. As far as the tools are concerned, there is a consistent element of color used in the image. The important numbers/titles are bold, and the elaboration on each statistic is in black print, contrasted against a pastel background. This makes the information easy to read. There is an element of shaping among the image as well. The thick black lines serve to divide the image in four parts, and allow the eye to flow down the image, as well as conveying the idea that no one statistic is more important than the other, as each stat is given an equal amount of space. One critique I would have is that the size of the image could be increased, and I almost feel as if the graphics (i.e. the chicken, KFC bucket, hot dog, etc.) are in too close proximity to the actual chart. Also, I feel like "overprotiened" could be a little bigger as well.

Overall, I think this image does a great job of conveying a lot of information in a small space. I think there could be an increase in the size of the image, but in summary I think this image did what it set out to do. I think it would fit well in a health magazine article, or something of that nature.