Visual storytelling is on the rise. Social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat are being used more as a means of communication. Photos taken by “citizen journalists” during unforeseen events tells the complete news story that captures the viewers’ emotions. This leads me to the study of Semiotics and this particular style of research takes a look at signs and symbols as playing a communicative role in our social lives and in this case, it’s imagery.
Remember the good ‘ol days of emails when we replied to each other’s messages with symbols made out of texts sucn as the ever popular : ). These emoticons soon evolved to actual images of smiley faces but now it looks like emotional reactions has evolved into GIF animation.
Yes, these basic animations are making a comeback and this time as a creative way to respond to particular messages. Websites such as Replygif, Giphy and ReactionGifs are perfect places to find the right emotional responses, just find one and insert the link on your email or blog comment. If you don’t see one that best suits your responses you can always create your own GIF animation with GIF generators such as Imgflip.
So what are your thoughts on GIF animations as a means of communcation?
Related articles
- Are reaction GIFs a form of language? (dailydot.com)
- Animated GIFs in Emails> Why Not! (getresponse.com)
- Are GIFs a language? MIT building text-to-GIF translator (cbc.ca)
- Pareidolia – Emoticons (amycbrownlee.wordpress.com)
