Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design

This third 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 third edition include:

new material on diagrams and data visualization

a new approach to the theory of ‘modality’

a discussion of how images and their uses have changed since the first edition

examples from a wide range of digital media including websites, social media, I-phone interfaces and computer games

ideas on the future of visual communication.

Reading Images presents a detailed outline of the ‘grammar’ of visual design and provides the reader with an invaluable ‘tool-kit’ for reading images in their contemporary multimodal settings. A must for students and scholars of communication, linguistics, design studies, media studies and the arts.