Scott McCLoud's Tools for Understanding Visual Language

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a brilliant analysis of comic artistry, but what really pushes the book over the edge of genius is its flexibility and applicability for understanding visual culture and language as a whole.  The book is rich with insight and explication (note how clearly he explains some of Marshall McLuhan's ideas!), but I have identified what I take to be the five most useful guides for understanding how visual language and communication work. 

The scales of representation

On page 46, McCloud presents a series of images, from realistic to iconic (smiley face), and then suggests four sets values that this continuum represents.

• Complex to simple
• Realistic to iconic
• Objective to Subjective
• Specific to Universal

When you look at examples of visual communication (newspapers, magazines, advertisement, comic books, etc.), ask yourself: 

Planes of representation (the big triangle)

The "big triangle" might be all anyone needs to understand visual language and the history of art.  McCloud includes the triangle on his website, and notes the applicability beyond "understanding comics."

• The picture plane is on the top = abstractness of representation.
• Language is in the bottom right; words = ideas, emphasizes meaning, although words themselves can move vertically up towards the top, towards increasing abstraction (poetry is often more abstract than prose, for example).  
• Realistic images are in the bottom left.  Felicity of representation = wysiwyg (what you see is what you get).

"When an artist [visual communicator] is drawn to one end of the chart or another, that artist [visual communicator] may be revealing something about his or her strongest values and loyalties in art.  Those who approach the lower left, for example, are probably attracted by a sense of the beauty of nature.  Those at the top by the beauty of art. And those on the right by the beauty of ideas." (57)

The Big Triangle = the total pictorial vocabulary of comics or any visual art.

Later in the book, McCloud provides an historical analysis of the triangle: by the late 1800s the word and the image were radically separated; greatness was conferred on one or the other, mixing of the two was considered mass media, base, simple.  The 20th century art explosion moved "art" all over the place.  Representation melted away: abstraction—iconic and non-icon—made comebacks.  Language use moved away from abstraction towards simple, pragmatic expression.  mainly away from representation towards ideas, while language moved from abstraction to concreteness.   Words and images eventually collide in dadism, futurists, and pop art!  (145-48)

Closure

Closure is a concept that will be most useful for understanding forms of visual communication that use sequences of representation.  While we have to "fill in information" (i.e., use closure) on ads or posters that do not use panels, these categories will make the most sense when applied to any form of sequential art.   (74)

1. moment to moment: important for communicating small changes.

2. action to action: faster paced, action-based.

3. subject to subject: readers need to see the connection: bigger gap yet.

4. scene to scene: big jumps in time or space.

5. aspect to aspect: by passes time in favor of a wandering eye.

6. non-sequitor: no logical relationship between panels.

Word-picture combinations

McCloud provides another great set of categories we can use to analyze and produce visual communication.  Rather than focus on the transition between frames, these categories will be useful for understanding the relationship of words and images in any kind of visual communication (advertisement, magazine illustration, information graphic, etc. 

Word specific: pictures illustrate, but don't significantly add to the fairly complete verbal expression.

Picture specific: words act as soundtrack for images—the visual communicates pretty effectively on its own. 

Duo-specific: words and images tell us the same thing.

additive: words amplify or elaborate on an image, or vice versa.

In parallel: words and images follow different course, without intersecting.

Montage: words are treated as integral parts of the picture.

Inter-dependent: words and images working hand-in-hand, conveying an idea that neither could convey alone.  (153-55)

With words and image working together, comics can match any art form as a means of expression and/or communication.  (156)

Chapter Seven: The Six Steps

The tools for understanding visual communication listed above focus on products: what goes into, or what we might put into, visual communication.  The last tool McCloud offers is an understanding of the processes that usually go into making a comic or communicating visually. 

1. Idea/purpose: communicators often simply start with an idea, or they have a clear purpose for communicating (includes being assigned a task!).

2. Form: if the form isn't assigned, the communicator has to figure out what form his or her idea will take.

3. Idiom: styles and genres—communication usually needs to be within a recognized style to communicate easily, but exploring new idioms or genres can catch readers' attention.

4. Structure: putting it all together, what to put in and what to leave out.

5. Craft: getting the job done, using the tools you are comfortable with or learning new tools. 

6. Surface: communicators need to put some polish on their work—this is what readers really notice, even though it is just the surface of a long process. 

Because most of us are new to the world of visual communication, we will probably be focusing on communicating ideas effectively, and we won't likely break much new ground in terms of form and idiom.