Extended Project:
Engaging With Imagery
Outline of Workshop
• Why analyse imagery?
• Media and themes
• Reading images
• Reading a building
• Objects and artefacts
• Using images
• Suggested activities
• Further reading
Thinking about imagery
• Why analyse imagery?
• Story telling – using images and objects to tell
stories about ourselves and the world around us
• Key Skills – observation, analysis, identification,
description, explanation, argument, awareness,
self-expression, oral and literacy skills….
• Treat imagery the as you would any written text
• Interrogate
• Question
• Analyse
Media Themes
Photography Architecture Gender
Race The Canon
Advertising Maps
Sexuality Religion
Clothing Fine Art
Graffiti Memory
Ethnicity
Packaging
Authorship Space and Place
Digital/ Cyber
Film/ TV The Gallery
Products Viewer
Family
Animation Narrative
Flags
What codes and signifiers are
used to generate meaning?
What is it (i.e. media)?
Relationship between the image
and written documents?
What’s its relevance socially,
Who made it?
politically, economically?
What theories can
you apply?
Reading
Images
Audience?
Relationship between
text and image?
Purpose?
What is the composition?
How is colour used?
Where are you viewing it?
What is present
in the image?
Reading a Building
Age
Stories and
Style
narratives
Inhabitants/ Ornament or
users decoration
Uses Spaces
Location or Materials
site used
The life cycle of an object
An Object is…
made/ created/ ‘born’
distributed
purchased
used
discarded
thrown away/ lost/ given away/ passed on to another
given a new life: in landfill/ recycled/in someone
else’s property/ waiting to be purchased …..
Objects and Artefacts
Questions:
• What is it?
• Where is it from?
• What is its age?
• What is it made of?
• What is its purpose
• What visual details are
there?
• What does it feel like?
• Images are relevant to
all subject areas
• To illustrate
• Provide data
• The focus of discussion
• Your own imagery
Using Images in • Evidence of process
your work • Visual planning and
brainstorming
• Marketing and
promotion
• In your presentation
• References
Suggested Activities
• Analyse the front page of a newspaper or
magazine
• Evaluate an advertising billboard
• Examine a company website
• Respond to a personal photograph
• Assess the layout and design of a favourite shop
• Record the images and objects on your street
• Consider the design of food packaging
