Visual Literacy Timeline

Here is a link to my Visual Literacy Timeline:

Visual literacy involves both interpreting meaning from images and also creating images which effectively communicate a message to an audience. I focused on this dual modality as I attempted to identify major communication breakthroughs which have impacted the way society has viewed the world and which also provide significant historical contextual information that students need in order to be visually literate. My timeline begins with one of the first recorded visual designs - the drawings from Cave of Lascaux in France. This is followed by the drawings and written literacy symbols of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Greek architecture stands as a testament to the classical views of this civilization. By the time of Leonardo Da Vinci, sketches, charts, maps and visual diagrams were juxtaposed with words in books and papers to explain complex concepts. Paintings and sculpture have reflected the customs and values of society since early times. Newspapers with illustrations and later with photographs spread common images to many people over a wide geographical area creating a shared basis of visual information. Cameras more objectively captured images of people and events. In the early 1900s Randolph Caldecott’s illustrations in children’s books revolutionized publishing; billboard advertising influenced perceptions of the good life; sequential drawings and comics involved the reader in the story. Movies, newsreels, and all forms of animation convey messages about life and the state of the world to millions. TV entertains and educates providing instantaneous images of current events to people around the world. Then in 1968, John Debes, at Kodak coined the phrase “visual literacy”. The Internet allows millions around the globe to share the same visual images. The advent of the Internet, computers, digital cameras, desktop publishing software, and affordable color printers enable many people to have the capability to create effective design visuals.