What is Visual Language? How does the Visual Grammar work?

Visual Realism

Visual realism has influenced an individual life for many decades since the pre-history age. Ancient people used to draw, paint and sculpture on the cave to communicate and record what they saw or hunt in daily life; for instance, animal painting on Apollo 11 cave in Namibia and bison reliefs in the cave at Le Tuc d’Audoubert, Ariége, France (Kleiner, 2015). Visual became the reality for human perception when the signifier is used as signified meaning of a thing. In the present age, people make use of a sign in the broad area especially in the digital world; icon, symbol and index are implied to represent the reality. Visual communication becomes another dominant language for human society and drives viewer perception far beyond the text-based communication age. Many forms of the visual text have been invented and be used in human societies; some textual is recirculated to use at different times and places again and again as long as it can be served the need of society. However, distinct societies might have interpreted the meaning of a similar visual text in other ways as regard to the norm and society 's belief; this is a regular phenomenon of communication. Nevertheless, numerous signs are used to interpret a similar meaning; additionally, the meaning is still dynamic according to the social context.  The visual text has been used a lot in society as a visual communication through various media form and genres; for example, print, graphic design, film, website, games and virtual reality. As a matter of fact, each medium genre has its own visual language; this language which is a creator used to construct meaning-making through the visual elements and composition. Next, we will take a deep look at the visual language in each medium form.

Visual Language in Arts and Design

The fundamental elements of art language comprise of dot, line and colour. These elements are used to create simple art form and further complex form; for instance, shape and form. However, the visual elements require a principle of composition to organised them to present the artistic idea. Besides, Rudolf Arnheim (1974) gave us the rigid idea of how the visual elements and the art principle work together in the realm of art landscape (Arnheim, 1974). In his book, Arnheim defined and described the tenth of visual art forms which are balance, shape, form, growth, space, light, colour, dynamics and expression. This book illustrates the basic principle of art and expands the knowledge of the art to new artists and scholars. Artist and designer formally make use of these visual art forms/visual elements and art principles to create a sense of visual perception.

Visual Language in Film

The film is narrative storytelling; this story comes from idea, experience, emotion and sense of aesthetics. Director makes use of the visual elements and composition to organize all the art forms to construct a story. A way in which the director deploys to construct the visual story had become the film language. Therefore, the film language comprises of techniques and approaches which have been developed since it appeared as a motion picture. The smallest unit of the film is a frame composed of the visual elements; the series of frames are designed and connected to build a shot, and the series of the shots are connected to create a scene. Many scenes are edited to construct a sequence of a story. Thus, the frame is counted as the first component of the film language. Frames are recorded from a camera; when the camera moves a position from which its located it influenced the emotion of the story. Moreover, the movement of the camera also affected the continuing of storytelling.
Therefore, the initial components of the film language consist of Framing (frame size and type of frame or shot), Camera movement and Camera angle. The framing can be described as the picture below.

Frame size

Another component of the film language is a way of connecting different sequences together aiming to create a story which is called Editing. The editing employs many principles which have been developed since the period of motion picture existed. Some film genre, the story never exist until the editing process begins. The early principle of editing had been developed the rhythm and cutting to construct the story; later a filmmaker applied further cutting techniques which are Insert, Dissolve, Close Up, Flashback(to simulate the sense of back to the past) and Cutting to decrease the time.

        

Visual Language in Digital Games

Visual Grammar Means?
‘Visual grammar’ is defined by several scholars:

Buckingham (2010) and Fernande Saint-Martin (1990) as ‘a system where basic elements are interrelated according to certain laws or regularities’, while Horn (1998) states that ‘it is based on the tight investigation of words and visual elements.’

I stated the definition of visual grammar in my thesis as:

   "the principles and rules of a visual game landscape (the game territory and environment) for composing the forms of visual elements and structuring the meaning of perceptual experience. It creates a system of visual communication in a particular context" (Nobaew, 2015)

The Basic Elements of Visual Grammar 

- Primary Visual Elements are the original abstract units of visual language: point, Line and Colour. 

- Secondary Visual Elements are perceptual and subjective; they are complex and may be partly built from primary visual elements: Shape, Light, Form, Space, Texture and Sound.

Secondary Visual Elements

Secondary Visual Elements are constructed from primary visual elements. Secondary visual elements are constructed from primary visual elements; they are constructed from point, line and colour. The secondary elements are Shape, Light, Form, Space, Texture and Sound.

The Visual Principle

The visual principles as the principle of design combine and composites the visual elements of game objects to create meaning of the visual concept in the game environment; it is the rule of designers which developed from discipline to discipline. This principle consists of balance, emphasis, movement or rhythm, dynamics, perspective and others. The visual principle works with game contents and storyline; moreover, it also supports and cooperates with game mechanics as well. This principle is an effective guideline for game designers, however, they can selectively using or ignoring some time. Moreover, visual principles are related among themselves and working together. Designing in different aesthetics theme in each WoW’s game spaces, game designers consider seriously to control visual elements via the visual principle such as colour, composition, spacing, etc. The perspective, for instance, one of the visual principles relates with a way of how to design colour, shape and space in a particular game area, that it will create a different sense of presence.

 Visual grammar on the three-dimensional online game

The framework of visual grammar consists of two sites which are the site of the game and the site of the player. The site of the game or visual design is governed by the visual rules which require to integrate with the visual operators for composing the visual elements to construct the game world. and visual realism.

Syntactic Rules - the Rules of Visual Syntax (Gestalt theory and Visual Perception)

Rule 1: The Basic Laws of Visual Perception
It is the fundamental rules of visual design
Rule 2: The Laws of Visual Grouping
           The objects are visually systematized into groups.  Groups are formed from objects which share visual elements and properties.
Rule 3: Composition Principles
These principles are the guide to the integration of all visual elements and operators and other components of the media including storyline and interaction.
Rule 4: The Principle of Visual Interactions
It is the interaction between the audience and the media.
Rule 5: Interactivity
           The interactivity encourages audiences to continue interacting.

Summary of Visual Grammar

References

- Nobaew, Banphot (2015). The role of visual grammar and player perception in an online game, Rosendahls, Denmark.

- www.immaginare.com.br/en/simplicity-symmetry-and-more-gestalt-theory-and-the-design-principles-it-gave-birth-to/
- Rudolf Arnheim. Art Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A., 1974.