Touted as a solution, dyslexia fonts have been growing in popularity during this era of increased political and state-wide attention to the reading and learning needs of students with dyslexia. This paper reviews the research literature on effectiveness of dyslexia fonts and offers evidence-based instructional recommendations for students with…

The purpose of this position paper in to provide guidance on the creation and utilization of infographics for learning and instruction. The paper includes practical insights and provides a framework for the creation of infographics. The framework can be used by educators to create their own infographics for instructional and visual literacy…

Understanding how to critique visual images can be beneficial for faculty teaching in art, design, or visual communication fields, but also for any faculty who use images to teach course content.

Dictionary compilers and designers use punctuation to structure and clarify entries and to encode information. Dictionaries with a relatively simple structure can have simple typography and simple punctuation; as dictionaries grew more complex, and encountered the space constraints of the printed page, complex encoding systems were developed,…

Explicit pedagogy that focuses on visual design and composition principles can affect students' responses to and understanding, interpretation and analysis of images, as well as the creation of their own visual representations. This article considers the why, the what, and the how of teaching various visual elements of art and design to students…

Little historic context is generally provided regarding design phenomena; ideas, names, events and relationships are disregarded in design's typical superficial coverage; it is as though design exists in a vacuum. This paper seeks to put Helvetica, the face, the font and the movie into context by exploring its relationship to Swiss Design…

Technical communicators are expected to work extensively with visual texts in workplaces. Fortunately, most academic curricula include courses in which the skills necessary for such tasks are introduced and sometimes developed in depth. We identify a tension between a focus on technological skill vs. a focus on principles and theory, arguing that…

Traditionally, people have used perspectives of space and time to define a sense of place and personal identity. Western cultures interpret place and time as static entities. In interactive multimedia computing, visual literacy defines new dimensions in communication that are reshaping traditional Western concepts of place and time. Experience…

Graphic design's messages can reach across streets and across the globe; they can bring together countries, communities and strangers for a common cause; they can also serve to divide otherwise amenable neighbors. Design students must fully understand this potential reach and thus the responsibility they have to create tolerant, informed messages.…

Word processing is part of every writer's set of competencies today, and as readers, their expectations of type have risen well beyond the old Courier font of typewriters. Yet only recently have writers had access to the thousands of different typefaces available today and had such power in making design choices. Type has been much studied and…

Recent appeal to the concept of design in composition studies benefits teaching writing in digital media. Yet the concept of design has not been developed enough to fully benefit composition instruction. This article develops an understanding of design as a matter of resolving wicked problems and makes a case for the advantages of this…

With business documents, visuals can serve to enhance the written word in conveying the message. Images can be especially effective when used subtly, on part of the page, on successive pages to provide continuity, or even set as watermarks over the entire page. A main reason given for traditional text-only business documents is that they are…

Examines the interplay of text, illustrations, and book design elements, using examples from children's books. Discusses the impact of book design on young readers' responses, and presents ideas for acquainting children with specific book design elements. Suggests that class activities in book design can improve children's visual and verbal…

The goal of an introductory graphics course is fundamental visual literacy, which includes learning to appreciate the power of visuals in communication and to express ideas visually. Traditional principles of design--the focus of the course--are based on more fundamental gestalt theory, which relates to human pattern-seeking behavior, particularly…

One of the most interesting challenges facing educators today is how to engage students in meaningful study of the environment in which they live. This paper presents the benefits of studying scientific data from an aesthetic point of view. The visual display of the earth's surface through aerial photographs and satellite map images was used as…