Left to Right: The Cultural Shift from Words to Pictures(Required Reading Range)

This book is a journey through our increasingly visual culture. A journey where we consider how technological change has influenced the way we think, the way we see and the way we communicate. We will look at the way that the development of language has gone hand in hand with the development of technology. The rise of alphabetic literacy reading and writing has reconfigured the way we think and has been a contributing factor to changes in history, religion, gender relations and culture. With the introduction of television, the potency of images was greatly increased. As a result, alphabetic information has faced a strong challenge. The rapid development of screen-based media over the latter half of the 20th century has seen the introduction of an increasingly portable range of digital technologies and with this has come an increasingly image based use of language. The increasing convergence of the television with the home computer, the video game, the world wide web, the mobile telephone and the digital camera has run in parallel with a reduction in the number of people reading text. Artists, designers, authors, publishers, schools and universities have all had to reassess their approach to language and find new ways of talking to a generation who have a new way of reading. The trend of mass media communication is toward the visual and we find ourselves in an age where even our written language is becoming more and more visually driven.

Table of Contents:
How to get the most out of this book. Definitions. Definitions/Glossary of terms. Context/Introduction. The television age: The arrival of the television; The influence of television/Magazine case study; The influence of television/Advertising; A new wave; Context/A post-modern sensibility. The influence of television/Penguin Books case study. Language without boundaries: Context/The origins of writing/The Rebus; Context/The Rebus/Connecting writing with sound; Utopian ideals; Isotype Institute/1941-1969; Teh rational for Isotype/Worlds divide: Pictures Unite; Context/The politics of writing; The principles of Isotype symbols; Isotype and colour; Isotype and Linguistics/Value; Blissymbolics/The Principles; Universal perception/Adrian Frutiger. A new typography: Day-Glo Constructivism/Reprocessing; New primitives; New primitives/Neo-Modernism; Light the Blue Touch Paper and Stand Well Back; Fuse; Fuse/Typing pictures; Context/The printing press; Context/Gender and the alphabet; Context/Saved by television. Safety, speed and commerce: The pictogram; Internationalism. Converging Technologies: The desktop computer; Context/technology as a catalyst; Context/Invading languages; The Mobile Telephone; The Mobile Telephone/Portable identity; The Mobile Telephone/Frontline reporters; Context/Amplifying reality; SMS/ Short Messagin System. Context/Summary. Bibliography. Index. Acknowledgements/Picture credits.

About the Author :
David Crow worked as a designer in London at the design group Assorted Images and as an art director for Island Records before running his own freelance consultancy. As a freelance designer he worked for a range of clients in the cultural sector including Rolling Stones Records, Virgin Records, Phonogram and The Royal Shakespeare Company. He then moved into academic life where he ran the graphic arts department at Liverpool's John Moores University for eight years before becoming Head of the School of Design at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.