Introduction

This is a book about visual forms of communication, including written text.

These communicative visuals have a diverse range of forms and purposes, but

we will show that it is possible to both describe and explain the major prop-

erties of diverse visual-communication forms and purposes within a common

theoretical framework in much the same way that major properties of diverse

chemical elements can be described with the same vocabulary of protons,

neutrons, and electrons, all elements arranged in a single periodic table.