How does text change the context of an image? How can text influence us emotionally?

Text is a fundamental part of graphic communication, it can compliment an image or completely alter the meaning of it. It can be used to explain the image or change the emotion that is felt when viewing the image. The combined use of visual and textual language is important when communicating to an audience.

A simple photograph can capture a moment in time, the emotions, the setting and the people there, it can often also misguide people, giving us one impression when infact there could be a hundred explanations to the reason behind it.

This photograph is by Joel Sternfield, from his book ‘On This Site’. Without text you would think nothing much of it, that it’s just a slightly run down house or it could easily be a photo you see in an Estate Agent. However when seen with the accompanying text you realise it is infact a site where hundreds of toxic chemicals have been dumped causing residents to get cancer and babies to have mutations. This changes the meaning of the image considerably, having a more dramatic impact on the viewer.

Sternfield explores this theme throughout his book, looking at places where tragic and unthinkable events have happened. He shows us how we tie emotions to certain places and that these places cannot be forgotten because of what has happened there. The lack of humans in the photographs makes them even more surreal and desolate.

Charity campaigns often use text to influence us emotionally.

This advert for Refuge, (a domestic abuse charity for women and children) manipulates the audience’s emotions by looking at violence from a child’s point of view. Using a letter written to Santa, in simple language and in the handwriting of a child it makes people react and feel empathy for children in that situation. This poster has been designed specifically to trigger people’s emotions to encourage them to support the charity, giving money or otherwise.

The text below the letter reads, ‘90% of domestic violence is witnessed by children’, by having this fact it strengthens the urgency and importance of the piece.

In conclusion, the effect of text on an image can drastically alter its meaning and context. When an image is viewed by an audience assumptions and opinions are naturally made. If accompanied with a simple line of text this can instantly change how the image is perceived and the emotions that are felt. Occasionally artists/designers decide that they want their audience to have their own interpretation of the work and therefore don’t include any text to explain it.