Visual+Literacy

__** Visual Literacy **__

The purpose of this assignment was to critique the picture below. I had just learned about different elements when it comes to pictorial inserts. Alignment, contrast and proximity are a few of the criteria to evaluating these graphics. Here is my critique:

This info graphic is just telling us that 600 million Big Macs are eaten by Americans each year, 8 billion chickens are raised for food each year, 127 chickens are eaten in America every second and finally 20 billion hot dogs are consumed by Americans each year.The title loosely wraps the statements together as it assumes that Americans are being overproteined.The creator assumes that a quick glance will get their point across over either: eating too much or having too much protein in our diets. The mixed message here is quite confusing. At first glance you completely miss the “Overproteined” title, which by the way is not a word. Even “proteined” isn’t a word. The graphic doesn’t have a clear point it’s trying convey. It just has 4 statements, which aren’t facts, and the statements could be related.Where are the references to the possible facts?Most graphics have a reference at the bottom so that the reader can either look up the facts later or receive more information. Additionally, 127 chickens a second only adds up to 4 billion chickens a year. Where are the other 4 billion chickens going? This statement is misleading and could possibly be considered false. I do like that the pictures and boxes are in close proximity to one another which makes it very easy to follow from one statement to the next. Each picture is related to the statement above it, everything is easy to read and the colors do not clash and distract from the information being presented. Other than those few things, this info graphic is pretty awful.

Improvements that I would make would be too numerous to explain. The few important changes that I would make would be: have a title with actual words, add references to my statements or facts for the reader to check, clearly explain that being “overproteined” is bad for the environment, our health or even our economy. I’m unsure of the point of this picture, but if I made the picture, I would have a clear point. 