Adding Text

Does text help aid people with a deeper understanding of an image?

With many people latching onto the idea of protection, it was clear that the words I had chosen were helpful cues to them. For others though these cues proved to be useless – they could tell me a story about the images but not the one I wanted. Was it because they were not looking out for these clues? Did the words not trigger anything similar to my thoughts?

Starting of with 1 word it was apparent that some people did not respond in the way in which I wanted them to – was it the wrong choice of word? Even changing the word and pairing it with another image didn’t always prove successful either.

n: Laura Lawson
a: 17
g: Female
o: Student
(Word: guard on Knight)
The little girl threw the balls over the fence and guard gave her a row.

n: Wallis Grant
a: 17
g: Female
o: Student
(Word: guard on girl)
Set in a Medieval castle. Little girl who is lost, wanders in through gate to the castle.

n: Amy Vine
a: 18
g: Female
o: Student
(Word: guard on knight)
Little girl gathering apples climbed over big iron fence. Walking through trees, knight gives her a fright.

Why is it that these three subjects didn't respond to the word on the images? Not one of them responded to the cue in the way in which I wanted them to. Some use the words in their description but not in the correct context, this led me to believe that the word I had chosen was not the most suitable. Drastically moving then to four words (a word for each image), people found it easier to pick up on the underlying theme of protection.

n: Kirsty Braes
a: 20
g: Female
o: Student
(Words: Guard - Knight, Girl - defend, Cameras - watch over, Fence - shield)

Straight away Kirsty was able to pick up on the protection aspect which made me think that I had then made it too easy and obvious by including too many words. Reducing the words gradually allowed me to track the effects (and not influence people’s reactions so much), although it was hard to spot a reoccurring trend due to participant’s answers. Clearly some people are more susceptible to cues than others!

n: Fiona Sichi
a: 19
g: Female
o: Student
(Words: Guard- Knight, Watch over – Cameras)

n: Sarah Mettleton
a: 20
g: Female
o: Student
(Word: Defend on knight)

n: Gillian McKinnon
a: 37
g: Female
o: PA
(Word: Watch – cameras)

This experiment has proven valuable for me gaining an insight into how people see ‘polysemic’ images and how we as designers can help lead people to a similar manipulated response. As Barthes discusses in ‘The Rhetoric of Image’, it is important for us to understand what the type of message we want to portray is and use our skills to provoke the same reaction from others. After my experiments, I disagree with Barthes and in fact think that text is an important aspect of an image, especially in advertising. Narrowing the scope allows us to control the message we send to people and controlling them in a ‘puppet’ like manner in reacting the way in which we plan.

When Barthes argues in the Panzini advert that you don’t need text to decipher the image, to a certain extent, I believe you do. I mean even though the writing is in French we can still take messages away from the image but really if Barthes hadn’t broken down the image for me then maybe I would not have interpreted it the way in which he describes. Surely it is a designer’s job to create an image that both you and I would see the same but do we always need text to aid us in this? Surely if we pick an image correctly then the text would only help reinforce the idea. There are so many what if’s and buts surrounding this topic and hopefully if I have enough time, it is something that I would in the future like to explore more of.

Initially I thought that people may not get the images that I chosen but sure enough most people did but Barthes explains that there are many messages that can be taken from an image so even though people did not necessarily get the message that I wanted them to get, doesn’t mean that they got it wrong – there are no right or wrong answers. Aspects that should be taken into consideration when creating this message are things like location of upbringing and at present, age, gender, religion, occupation, cultures, etc. These will all help us determine the response given and hopefully allow us to design successfully!


N.B. I know the module handbook stated that we were to use the 3 original images for adding text but I also tried it with the 4 images too.