Stylisation and Visual Metaphor: 2 Modalities as Engines of Visual Metaphor

Building on our discussion of degrees of iconicity, we now examine how each visual (and audiovisual) modality can independently and relationally generate metaphorical meaning. Whereas verbal metaphor maps between conceptual domains through lexicogrammar, visual metaphor emerges from the interaction of perceptual channels and the viewer’s embodied construal.

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1. Shape and Form

The contours, silhouettes, and spatial organisation of objects and figures can encode metaphorical significance:

• Curvature vs angularity: Curved forms often convey softness, gentleness, or approachability; angular forms can signal danger, tension, or rigidity.

• Scale and proportion: Exaggerated size may imply importance, threat, or dominance; miniature forms may signal vulnerability or intimacy.

• Distortion or simplification: Stylisation can heighten relational or emotional interpretation, turning perceptual features into evaluative or narrative tokens.

Shape operates semiotically like experiential lexicogrammar: it construes relations, actions, and qualities within the visual field.

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2. Colour and Light

Colour functions as a powerful metaphorical resource:

• Hue: Red can signify passion, danger, or intensity; blue can signify calm, distance, or melancholy.

• Saturation and brightness: Intense, high-contrast colour often draws attention and amplifies affect; muted or desaturated tones convey subtlety, reflection, or decay.

• Symbolic association: Cultural conventions layer additional meaning onto perceptual effects, creating relationally anchored value tokens.

Colour, like interpersonal meaning in language, shapes how the viewer interprets relational and affective dynamics.

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3. Motion and Trajectory

Movement, speed, and directionality convey metaphorical content in both sequential and animated media:

• Acceleration and deceleration: Fast motion can signal excitement, chaos, or urgency; slow motion may suggest reflection, suspense, or deliberation.

• Directionality: Upward motion often connotes growth, aspiration, or hope; downward motion can imply decline, fall, or loss.

• Kinetic exaggeration: Stylised motion enhances interpretive clarity, allowing metaphorical meaning to emerge even in abstracted or schematic forms.

Motion functions analogously to textual sequencing in language, structuring narrative and relational interpretation across time.

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4. Depth, Perspective, and Spatial Organisation

Spatial arrangement and perspective contribute metaphorical construal:

• Foreground and background: Proximity can indicate salience, relational closeness, or importance; distance can suggest marginality, isolation, or hierarchy.

• Vanishing points and converging lines: Depth cues guide attention and imply directionality or inevitability, contributing to narrative and affective meaning.

• Spatial exaggeration: Altered or impossible perspectives can heighten metaphorical or symbolic resonance.

Spatial organisation functions like thematic structuring in language: it organises experiential and interpersonal relations within the semiotic field.

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5. Sound and Multimodal Integration

Where present, auditory modalities provide additional metaphorical channels:

• Tone and timbre: Harsh or discordant sounds can signal tension; harmonic tones suggest harmony or emotional resolution.

• Rhythm and tempo: Repetition, acceleration, or pause can mirror visual motion, emphasise narrative events, or modulate affective response.

• Cross-modal interaction: Sound can reinforce or contrast visual cues, creating layered metaphorical meaning across modalities.

Sound interacts with visual modalities relationally, functioning like textual cohesion in language: it integrates multimodal elements into a unified semiotic event.

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6. Analytic Implications

Understanding modalities as independent engines of metaphor allows us to:

• Analyse each channel for its unique evaluative and relational potential.

• Examine how stylisation modulates the metaphorical power of shape, colour, motion, depth, and sound.

• Recognise that metaphor in visual media is distributed and emergent: each modality contributes both independently and relationally to overall meaning.

Visual metaphor is thus not a property of isolated elements but a dynamic, multimodal phenomenon actualised in perception, attention, and relational construal.

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Series Synthesis

Together with the previous special post on degrees of iconicity, this analysis shows how visual media generate meaning both through the style of representation and through the semiotic potential of each modality. Stylisation and modality interact to produce immersive, temporally structured, and metaphorically rich fields of relational meaning.

Next Steps

These insights open the way for a systematic framework mapping degrees of iconicity, modality, and metaphorical potential across different media — particularly in children’s picture books and other stylised forms.