Calling Out to the World in Visual Language
Rex How
1.
Sometimes things happen in interesting ways.At the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2017, a woman from the Netherlands talked to me about creating picture books for people with visual disabilities.
She explained how images can be “read” through touch, but my thoughts drifted elsewhere. Suddenly the cliché that “images are a kind of language” came to mind.
If images are a kind of language, then those of us who can experience it are blessed. But, if some people can only imagine the beauty of this language without any first-hand experience, are those of us who are blessed making the most of our gifts? Do we really understand what visual language can do?
2.
The BolognaRagazzi Award, presented at the annual Bologna Children’s Book Fair, is a highly influential award for artists and illustrators.Some translate the word “ragazzi” as “children,” but if you visit the Salaborsa library in in Bologna, you’ll find that the word means a lot more.
Looking at the library’s collection, it becomes clear that “ragazzi” includes three kinds of people:
A section for children under 4.
A section for children between 4 and 12.
And a section for teenagers between 13 and 18. In fact, this is the biggest section of the three, with an enormous collection that includes comics from around the world, picture books, and books on art.
Later I found out that “ragazzi” means both “boys” and “youths.” It does not only refer to children.
The Salaborsa Library provides a rich collection of picture books and comics for teenagers3.
When you learn any language, there are several levels of proficiency you need to progress through, with each one building on the ones before it. The same should apply for the visual language of images: toddlers, children, adolescents, and adults should all reach a different and increasingly high level of proficiency.But what happens in Taiwan now is that our society greatly emphasizes visual language education for toddlers and children, with rich reading resources available. But for adults and adolescents in high school and beyond, things are different.
Because our traditional culture focuses on written language, parents encourage pictorial reading when their children are young only because children at that age are not yet capable of reading enough text. They treat images as a supplement to aid in the transition to text reading, instead of truly nurturing their children’s visual proficiency.
When children are in high school, the pressure of exams makes text reading even more paramount in importance. Many young people have no opportunity or time for truly diverse. visual reading.
The gap in adolescence makes it difficult to regain visual reading proficiency in adulthood. And so Taiwan has a major deficit in visual reading skills.
Because of this deficit, many people think of picture books only as children’s books.
4.
But across the world, visual language is more valuable and important than ever.First, online distribution channels and tighter links between the online and physical worlds mean that visual language is now global in its scope. It is the most widely shared language in the world, and it creates the hottest new trends—particularly for the younger generation.
Second, images are exchanged, synthesized, and re-created faster and on a larger scale than ever before. Creators who are skilled in visual language, and readers proficient in understanding it, have unprecedented access to resource and opportunities.
Third, new technologies are giving new life and new energy to visual language, making visual language the language with the most value in terms of intellectual property.
That’s why the visual language deficit in Taiwan at the adolescent and adult levels is a grave challenge.
We’ve cut ourselves off a global trend, and we are suffering the consequences.
First, our society cannot develop enough talent in visual narratives. Occasionally there are diamonds in the rough, but they are always the exception and not the rule.
Second, our society does not have ability for visual appreciation that is based on visual language proficiency, let alone aesthetic appreciation.
Third, many people overlook the opportunity to create added value for their products and services using visual language, and they miss many new opportunities arising in the internet age.
What can we do to make up this deficit?
5.
Over the years, I’ve always made space for visual languages in my publishing work. My publishing company has released and promoted all kinds of texts and formats related to visual reading.But now I’ve gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for visual language. So this February, we’re going to try something new. We are launching a new brand focusing on visual language: image3.
image3 has a clear mission: to bridge the gap in visual reading between adolescents and adults in Taiwan. We will publish mostly picture books, but our work will include other formats as well.
image3's target readers include adults, university students, and high school students.
We believe that visual language skills should be developed for everyone throughout their lives. They are not only an aid for young children with limited vocabularies to learn to read written text. We believe that visual language opens up new ways to communicate with the world--for everyone.
6.
We named our project image3 because our aim is to let everyone feel, understand, and create through images.Here are some of the things that we'll be doing:
1 We will launch our first lineup of six books in February at the Taipei International Book Exhibition, as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of celebrated picture-book creator Jimmy Liao's career. Starting in May, we will publish 1 or 2 new books every month.
2 We will work with bookstores across Taiwan to break the stereotype that picture's books are children's books, and advocate for shelf space dedicated to image3 publications. We will also hold talks in schools and libraries on this issue.
3 We will work with more new creators to explore new frontiers in visual language, expand our territory in emerging global markets, and take advantage of cross-disciplinary opportunities.