Our eyes are no longer the same as in ages gone by. We are a mixture of observers and producers of image with a social role in the choice of the image.

Luís Palolo// J.P. Henriques

We can say that an image always depends on our way of seeing, how we look at an image; how we acquire what we perceive and internalise.

The act of seeing is one of our greatest capacities as human beings. This act of seeing evolves. The act of seeing and interpreting an image had been confined to the classical arts. Many changes have occurred, particularly so in the last decades of the twentieth century and beginning of this millennium. We now have a vast number of means to support visual art. Nowadays, information through images plays a preponderant role which, in many cases, supersedes that of written communication.

The role played by images in contemporary society is even more related to its social intervention and the growing power given to each one of us. John Berger emphasised this aspect, "if the new language of images were to be used in another manner, its use would confer a new form of power. Through it, we could begin to define our experiences with greater accuracy, in areas where words are not adequate."(1) As Berger argued, it is important that the image is not an ideological instrument placed at the service of a large group. I think that currently this danger emerges with economic power and with the formatting of images for markets.

With the invention of motion picture cameras, photography, rotary printing presses or the Internet, we have witnessed the entrance into the era of technical reproducibility, a time when visual art enters into our homes, televisions, outdoors and in our lives. We thus have the power, instead of being mere spectators, also to be producers who control our own story and experiences in a perspective of creating personal meaning, as Berger predicted and encouraged, and who, in attempting to understand history, can become its dynamic agents. (2

In these creative and dynamic processes, the capacity of imagination must be present. At this point, in common with literature, "the more imaginative the work, the more profoundly we are permitted to share the experience that the artist had of the visible", as noted by Leach.(3)

In the field of graphic design, the way we communicate through images is a subject under permanent discussion. The use of images is a constant; we view massive quantities of images every day, some of which we are indifferent to, others which are internalised with great impact. On the part of the designer, this vast quantity of information needs to be organised and structured so that the choice is not banal and is in fact suited to the communication means to which it is destined.

The designer thus takes on an important social role in his way of seeing and choosing the image. As image creators, it is up to us to ensure that images are used in accordance with the intended objective, that ethics are incorporated in the visual message and that the different public groups are respected.

(1) and (2) John Berger , Ways of Seeing

(3) Neil Leach, The Anaesthetics of Architecture