Welcome.

Visual Literacy Today is an ongoing conversation about visual literacy, a field of study and practice that explores how we see and interpret images, how we use visuals to convey meaning and what it means to be literate in a digital age.

We understand visual literacy to be defined as: “an interconnected set of practices, habits, and values for participating in visual culture that can be developed through critical, ethical, reflective, and creative engagement with visual media” – Maggie Murphy, Unframing the Visual: Visual Literacy Pedagogy in Academic Libraries and Information (2024).

We welcome contributions from all disciplines – within and outside of academia – to help us create a body of content that truly reflects the breadth, complexity and potential of visual literacy today. 

This website is home to Dana Statton Thompson’s Recommended Reads, an extensive, annotated bibliography of visual literacy. Whether you are new to visual literacy or a seasoned expert, this reading list gives an excellent snapshot of research across the field.

Books on Visual Literacy

If you are interested in books on visual literacy outside the scope of the
Recommended Reads project, please see the following titles:

A Slow Approach to Visual Literacy in Higher Education:
Lesson Plans for Critical Discernment (2025)
by Dana Statton Thompson and Stephanie Beene

Connecting Visual Literacy to Theory:
Revisiting the Disruptions of Visual Thinkers in Education and Beyond (2024)
edited by Ricardo Lopez-Leon and Dana Statton Thompson

Unframing the Visual:
Visual Literacy Pedagogy in Academic Libraries and Information Spaces (2024)
edited by Maggie Murphy, Stephanie Beene, Katie Greer, Sara Schumacher, and
Dana Statton Thompson