Visual+Literacy

Overproteined! My Interpretation By first glance I assumed the visual was going to have some information about food because of the pictures of food around the table. "Overproteined" gives a good indication of what the designers wanted to portray. I assumed, before reading the table, I would be given information on how we consume too much protein. The table gives information on the amount of certain meat products is consumed in America which is leading to a high intake of protein. I think the visual is trying to say we in America are eating too much meat which might lead to a problem in the future. However, that is never overtly stated anywhere in the visual.

Overall Design Using PAT Using the PAT (Perceptions, Actions, & Tools) model I worked backwards seeing how the visual incorporated Tools using Actions to affect how I, the observer, perceive the visual. The visual incorporates several Tools. The type or text style changes in size from the tittle to subtitles to main text which adds contrast, part of Actions, to gain interest. One downfall is that the title is somewhat plain and doesn't incorporate much interest in color or shape to draw the observers eye. The table design gives good structure to the visual and the different colors help distingu ish places of different information, a good use of alignment and contrast. The clip art of various meats adds depth and texture to the visual so it's more than just a table with words. The Perception offered by the table leads the observer to see this as more of a researched, studied informative visual. The visual could better display these numbers by incorporating the use of hierarchy found under Perceptions in PAT. The actual numbers could easily be misread because of the "million" and "billion" in close proximity. Improvements The visual offers many good qualities that draws the observer in. I believe the visual could do better with the order of the information it displays to not make it so confusing. Possible chaning the table from horizontal to vertical givine a better display of hierarchy. After reading the information I did not feel very convinced of what the title seemed to portray as an issue. Using a bit more information to support the claim would validate the information and leave the observer with a better perception of the whole visual. For example, adding what the normal/necessary amount of protein intake should be as compared to what the average American consumes.