This special issue wants to pick up the visibility or visual gauntlet and answer to the task of inquiring and revealing whether and how a successful pitch for a translation might depend on visual modes of representation: what exactly is the value of visibility to translation? Or what would happen if translators started talking about visibility in terms of appearances, visual acts, seeing and cognitive science? The contributions to this special issue share one concern: the extent to which visibility and translation can be a means of establishing and communicating group identity, opinions, solidarity, and aesthetic and social boundaries, and, in turn, how these inflect the intellectual and economic practices of translation. The variety of topics and disciplines represented are indicative of the potential of a proper “pictorial turn” in translation studies.