Digital+Literacy

My overall interpretation of the visual message is that Americans are consuming too much protein, specifically protein from animal products. To take the message even further, you could imply that in order to produce the amount of protein Americans are consuming, unethical farming practices are employed. To discuss this visual message in depth, I will touch on the perceptions, actions, and tools used to get the message across.

The perception of this visual message is hierarchical since it displays increasing numbers in Americans’ consumption of protein.

The actions of this visual message include repetition, alignment, and proximity. To get the meaning of the message across, large numbers of protein consumption are repeated. All of these numbers are aligned with each other to enhance the effect so the viewer is able to compare and contrast. The proximity of the these different statistics are far enough apart to stand out, but close enough to be able to compare.

The tools used in this visual message include shape, a small use of color, and space. The shape of the statistics are aligned in a box, with the pictures standing out, overlapping it. There is use of color in the boxes and images, but perhaps brighter accent colors could have been used for a greater effect.

Since this visual message is suggesting that Americans consume too much protein, perhaps some images portraying the negative effects of this could have been used. For example, an overweight American eating a Big Mac, or a photo of an inhumane factory that is raising chickens at a rapid rate.