The children poster shown above resembles part of a patchwork quilt. The two modes of writing and image are both present in this colour-rich fine art print. Serving as a form of children's inspiration, different colours and typography are used in the poster to capture the attention of children. Words found in the captions surrounding the patchwork make up the writing mode.
Kress states that "the two modes of writing and of image are each governed by distinct logics, and have distinctly different affordances" (p.1). The details are reflected in the table shown below:
Referring to the image for instance, the sentence “Rainbow always follows the storm” can only be read in one way and that is in the order which the words are presented so as to make sense of what is being said. This compulsion to read in the order which words appear in a clause is commonly known as “reading path”. The sentence will not be meaningful if one is to mess up the order of words. Though reading path exists in the image too, there is more than one way of viewing it. Humans are found to start reading from what is considered to be the most salient to them followed by the less salient ones. Hence, the reading path is considered to be rather open because some elements of the image might appear more salient to some people and less salient to the rest.
The image and text found in this patchwork prose complement one another. In other words, the former cannot do without the presence of the latter. This is because it is rather impossible for readers to comprehend what message the creator is trying to convey if they are to refer only to the pictures, since the six pictures bear no relations to one another. For example, if one is to look only at the picture shown on the top right corner of the image, he/she might instantly recognize it as a sun and he/she might wonder, “Yeah, so what about the sun?”, since the other pictures do not provide any information on it. However, with the sentence, “Let the very best you shine”, one is able to realize the analogy at work here is shine as brightly as the sun. (Note that the sun and the word, “shine” are both in yellow. This suggests that they are related in some ways or another.)
On the other hand, though words alone are enough to convey meaning, they do have their own constraints too. They might not explain the meanings as well as pictures do simply because "a picture is worth a thousand words". For example, the word, “bloom” located at the bottom left corner does not say much itself because the word contains many senses. However, the picture of a flower helps to limit the number of senses to down to one. Readers will thus be able to recognize the intended message as bloom like a flower. In addition, words might not leave a deep impression in children's minds as compared to pictures, especially for those who learn better through visuals.
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