Reading Images - the Grammar of Visual Design
This second edition of the landmark textbook Reading Images builds on its reputation as the first systematic and comprehensive account of the grammar of visual design. Drawing on an enormous range of examples from children’s drawings to textbook illustrations, photo-journalism to fine art, as well as three-dimensional forms such as sculpture and toys, the authors examine the ways in which images communicate meaning. Features of this fully updated second edition include: • new material on moving images and on colour • a discussion of how images and their uses have changed through time • websites and web-based images • ideas on the future of visual communication.
Reading Images focuses on the structures or ‘grammar’ of visual design – colour, perspective, framing and composition – and provides the reader with an invaluable ‘tool-kit’ for reading images, which makes it a must for anyone interested in communication, the media and the arts. Gunther Kress is Professor of English at the Institute of Education, University of London. Theo van Leeuwen has worked as a film and television producer in the Netherlands and Australia and as Professor in the Centre for Language & Communication Research at Cardiff University. He is currently Dean at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney. They have both published widely in the fields of language and communication studies.
Praise for the first edition
‘Reading Images is the most important book in visual communication since Jacques Bertin’s semiology of information graphics. It is both thorough and thoughtprovoking; a remarkable breakthrough.’ Kevin G. Barnhurst, Syracuse University, USA ‘Fresh and stimulating. The sociocentric approach is by far the most penetrating approach to the subject currently available.’ Paul Cobley, London Guildhall University ‘A useful text for all students who are involved in areas which rely on both language and visual images for their expression and
Reading Images focuses on the structures or ‘grammar’ of visual design – colour, perspective, framing and composition – and provides the reader with an invaluable ‘tool-kit’ for reading images, which makes it a must for anyone interested in communication, the media and the arts. Gunther Kress is Professor of English at the Institute of Education, University of London. Theo van Leeuwen has worked as a film and television producer in the Netherlands and Australia and as Professor in the Centre for Language & Communication Research at Cardiff University. He is currently Dean at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney. They have both published widely in the fields of language and communication studies.
Praise for the first edition
‘Reading Images is the most important book in visual communication since Jacques Bertin’s semiology of information graphics. It is both thorough and thoughtprovoking; a remarkable breakthrough.’ Kevin G. Barnhurst, Syracuse University, USA ‘Fresh and stimulating. The sociocentric approach is by far the most penetrating approach to the subject currently available.’ Paul Cobley, London Guildhall University ‘A useful text for all students who are involved in areas which rely on both language and visual images for their expression and
References: Plate 1 Tropical Sun (Emil Nolde, 1914) Plate 2 Bushells advertisement (Woman’s Weekly, 1987) Plate 3 Joshua Smith (William Dobell, 1943) (Art Gallery of New South Wales) Plate 4 Patrick White (Louis Kahan, 1963) (Art Gallery of New South Wales)