Left to Right: The Cultural Shift from Words to PicturesThis book is a journey through our increasingly visual culture. A journey where we consider how technological change has influenced the way we think, the way we see and the way we communicate. We will look at the way that the development of language has gone hand in hand with the development of technology. The rise of alphabetic literacy reading and writing has reconfigured the way we think and has been a contributing factor to changes in history, religion, gender relations and culture. With the introduction of television, the potency of images was greatly increased. As a result, alphabetic information has faced a strong challenge. The rapid development of screen-based media over the latter half of the 20th century has seen the introduction of an increasingly portable range of digital technologies and with this has come an increasingly image based use of language. The increasing convergence of the television with the home computer, the video game, the world wide web, the mobile telephone and the digital camera has run in parallel with a reduction in the number of people reading text. Artists, designers, authors, publishers, schools and universities have all had to reassess their approach to language and find new ways of talking to a generation who have a new way of reading. The trend of mass media communication is toward the visual and we find ourselves in an age where even our written language is becoming more and more visually driven. |
Contents
How to Get the Most from this Book | 9 |
Definitions | 10 |
Definitions Glossary of Terms | 12 |
Context | 15 |
Introduction | 17 |
Chapter 1The Age of Television | 25 |
Chapter 2 Language without Boundaries | 53 |
Chapter 3 A New Typography | 101 |
Chapter 4 Safety Speed and Commerce | 145 |
Chapter 5 Converging Technologies | 155 |
Context Summary | 178 |
Bibliography | 189 |
190 | |
192 | |
Back Cover | 193 |
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Common terms and phrases
2gthr ABC Verlag Adrian Frutiger Alphabet Versus Analogue codes Arkana Bliss Blissymbolics brain Buzzcocks camera colour Conflict Between Word cover create David Crow describes DIAPOSITIV VORHANDEN Digital codes drawings Elliman example experience Face magazine Facetti font Future Books Vol graphic design Greiman Hieroglyphics iconic illustration imagery International Picture Language introduced Isotype Isotype Institute Isotype symbols issue Laurence King letterforms linguistic London magazine Malcolm Garrett Marie Neurath meaning mobile phone Mobile Telephone Neville Brody Opposite Otto Neurath Ovaltine Parrish Paul Elliman Penguin Peter Saville phonetic signs photographic pictograms pictographic pictorial political post-modern Poster Poynor principle production reading reality rebus recognise relationship Right Rossum Rowntree's Fruit Gums script sensibility Shlain signifiers society Story of Writing television text messaging Thames & Hudson type design typefaces typography Vaughan Oliver Versus the Goddess viewer Word and Image York