What Is Visual Literacy? 4 Visual Literacy Skills

Visual literacy is the ability to derive information and meaning from visual materials. Visual literacy and visual thinking can apply to all sorts of visual media, including illustrations, graphs, infographics, animations, visual art, and motion pictures. The ability to see purpose and information within these types of images is a sign of visual information literacy.

The term “visual literacy” dates back to John Debes, the founder of the Institute of Visual Literacy Association. Today, many contemporary educational societies like the International Visual Literacy Association advocate for teaching visual literacy as part of a balanced curriculum for today’s learners. In 2011, the Association of College & Research Libraries introduced visual literacy competency standards for higher education. The Journal of Visual Literacy is a boutique publication that dedicates itself to coverage of meaningful images in multimedia, communication, and education. Through these institutions and others, visual literacy has enjoyed elevated status as a subject worthy of study and instruction.

In the highly visual culture of the twenty-first century, visual content permeates all corners of life. Processing visual language and deriving the meaning of images has become essential to a person’s overall media literacy. Visual messages routinely appear in the following instances:

• News media: The use of images continues to expand in newspaper and magazine coverage, especially as infographics replace certain blocks of text.
• Art appreciation: Paintings, drawings, and sculptures are forms of visual communication. Whether you are visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, taking an art history class, or just looking at a crayon drawing from a child, you can unlock an enjoyment of art by thinking about the visual messages it conveys.
• Icons and signage: Icons—whether they’re street signs or phone apps—are visual representations of words and concepts. You must be visually literate to comprehend the messages these icons convey.
• Interpersonal communication: When you look at another person’s face or body language, you call upon your own visual literacy skills to make inferences about that person’s intentions and emotional state.

Full visual literacy requires several abilities.

1. 1. Interpret narrative: A visually literate person can look at many types of illustrations or motion pictures and be able to interpret a story, even without the use of words or audio.
2. 2. Interpret emotion: Visually literate people can interpret emotion and intention from studying facial expressions and body language.
3. 3. Recognize patterns: A visually literate person can recognize patterns and motifs in visual media.
4. 4. Think abstractly: A lot of visual language involves symbolism. A visually literate person can look at an image and understand that its meaning may extend beyond its literal shape.

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