Visual+Literacy

The obvious purpose of this visual is to show that American eat way too much protein. The designer has attempted to convey this message by lashing together a few raw facts about the amount of protein consumed by Americans each year. The designer tried to enhance this visual by adding a few pictures as well as some color to catch the eye. For the perception portion of the visual the designer went with the similarity strategy, aligning all the information in four boxes that were placed next to each other. This strategy was executed well; however I think that the third box, which does on have a million, or billion, under the initial number that sits at the top of the box is a little distracting. In other words, because that box is slightly different from the others, it draws my attention to it, which could lead me to ignore the other three boxes. The action most notably used in this visual was alignment. All of the boxes were aligned in the same manner, giving continuity through out the entire visual. There was also some contrasting at play here with the use of a bold font for the numbers at the top of boxes then a smaller font for the text. Again, I found the lack of a million, or billion, under the 127 in box three to be a bit distracting, but other than that I was okay with this aspect of the visual The Tools used were color and pictures. Each of the four boxes were a different color it signify that each one contained different information. There were also four pictures surrounding the visual that connected to the information in the boxes. While the colors did work for me, the pictures did not. I found them to be a bit distracting and took away from the information. If I were to improve this visual I would either increase the figure in box three so I could put a million underneath it, or move that box to the far left of the visual. I would also eliminate the four pictures that are surrounding it.