Visual/Verbal Collaboration in Print: Complementary Differences, Necessary Ties, and an Untapped Rhetorical Opportunity

Those who focus on the study of visual information continue to search for effective ways to conceptualize that inquiry. However, many visual examples are better categorized as visual/verbal collaboration, complicating analysis. When analysis is based on the assumption that visual and verbal modalities perform in similar ways, important complementary differences are overlooked. Therefore, this investigation presents a series of observations from a perspective rooted in difference, which leads to the argument that visual/verbal messages develop when cohesive and perceptual relationships form between image and text, resulting in four types of loose to tight visual/verbal collaboration. Examples of each can clarify, contradict, or challenge common understanding for a particular audience. Finally, a perspective in difference uncovers another kind of image/text collaboration, which instead of relying solely on actual images and text, depends on a weave of actual with imagined text and images, leading to an untapped rhetorical opportunity.