Visual

Language
 1. COMMUNICATION PROCESS

Message
It is the content of the
image- its information

Sender
The receptor
It is the person who
It is the person who decodes
creates an image in
the message to understand it
order to communicate

The channel or medium - It is the vehicle or

means used to transmit the information
The code
They are the rules and Context
norms that make the Place and time
message understandable
 The Function of the images

Informative - Content is transmitted in an objective way

 The Function of the images

Aesthetic
Images that communicate mainly beauty and harmony
 The Function of the images

Expressive
Images stimulate the receiver’s feelings. The point is not what we see
in the image, but the emotions we feel when we look at it
 The Function of the images

Exhortative
They try to persuade the receiver to do something, to buy a
product, to believe an idea or to do a task.
 The Function of the images

Narrative
The image tells a story
The Function of the images

Social
 2. Basic elements in visual language

Dot Line
Plane

Colour Texture Volume

 3. Signifier and signified
Signifier: any material Signified or meaning: the
thing that signifies, e.g., concept that a signifier
words on a page, a facial refers to.
expression, an image.
 4. Visual Signs
Sign: anything which can represent a thing or an idea

• Index / Indexical Signs: signs where the

signifier is caused by the signified, e.g.,
smoke signifies fire.

• Icon / Iconic sings: signs where the

signifier resembles the signified

• Symbol /Symbolic (arbitrary) signs: signs

where the relation between signifier and
signified is purely conventional and
culturally specific.
SImbols
5. Iconicity of an image
6. Types of images::
analytic image
Realistic images

Antonio López.
Gran vía
Figurative images

Paul Cézanne
Los jugadores
de cartas. 1896
Abstract images

Chema Madoz.