Breaking Images: A Method for Improving Design Students’ Visual Literacy

Breaking Images: A Method for Improving Design Students’ Visual Literacy

Stuart Medleya,b, and Hanadi Haddadb

a: UNIDCOM, IADE, Portugal; b: Edith Cowan University, Australia
Corresponding author: Stuart Medley (s.medley[at]ecu.edu.au)

Abstract: In pursuit of competitive advantage, a growing number of organizations are adopting design‑thinking strategies with a strong emphasis on visual methods. As a result, graphic design education must increase a focus on cultivating visual literacy as a thinking tool, in addition to its traditional processes for producing polished artifacts. This article proposes such a pedagogical approach; teaching students to deconstruct an image into pictures of differing levels of fidelity. The spell of realism broken, students can begin embarking on their own stylistic visual communication paths. Drawing on J.J. Gibson’s distinction between image and picture, students explore how deliberate choices of pictorial form can advance specific communication goals. Classroom activities encourage them to imagine a world without text — where meaning must be carried solely by pictures — and to challenge the cultural assumption that photographic accuracy is synonymous with effective depiction.

Keywords: graphic design education; studio exercises; visual communication; visual literacy

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Authors

Stuart Medley is a research fellow at UNIDCOM, Portugal, and an honorary associate professor of design at Edith Cowan University exploring the application of comics for legal contracts and in the health sector. He authored the book The Picture in Design and other publications, including for Wiley’s Companion to Illustration. He makes comics to improve employment and housing services, and has worked as an illustrator for 25 years with clients including Anglicare and Austal Ships in Australia, and the Imperial War Museums in the UK. He is a co-founder and art director for Hidden Shoal, a record label with a roster of international artists, with the BBC, Canadian Broadcasting, and Showtime as clients. He is a co-founder and funding director of the Perth Comic Arts Festival.

Dr. Hanadi Haddad has a background in interactive media, design and interactive television. She is a lecturer and supervisor at Edith Cowan University in design in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Her research interests include strategic visual communication, design thinking, service design and innovation, co-design/creation, usability, design theory and work integrated learning. She was previously a post-doctoral research associate at Murdoch University. A graduate of Curtin University, her PhD involved multidisciplinary research into visual modalities of character agents between the School of Design and School of Computer Science.

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Cite this article:
Medley, S., & Haddad, H. (2025). Breaking images: A method for improving design students’ visual literacy. Visible Language, 59(2), 153–175. https://www.visible-language.org/journal/issue-59-2-breaking-images-a-method-for-improving-design-students-visual-literacy

First published online August 15, 2025. © 2025 Visible Language — this article is open access, published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

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