Visual Rhetoric

This blog is a collection of case studies that examine the rhetoric of images and document design. About Me | Archive

[austinkleon]

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

austinkleon:

STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST TO BE PUBLISHED BY WORKMAN IN MARCH 2012

!!!

[scribnerbooks]

[helainetieu]

[heyoscarwilde]

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

heyoscarwilde:

Cut.  Paste.  Erase.

illustration by Viet Huynh :: via leepro.deviantart.com

[aclockworkorange]

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

aclockworkorange:

Re-Covered by Aled Lewis (Source)

[viafrank-deactivated20120702]

Designers vs Coding

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

viafrank:

“Do I need to know how to code?” is a question that comes up with sure-fire consistency in design circles. I’ve seen it asked by so many, from uncertain design students in classrooms worried about their chances of landing a job, to seasoned professionals at conferences seeing their pool of print projects slowly evaporate. The question is being asked with even greater frequency as of late, because Adobe has launched their product Muse, which promises designers the ability to “create unique websites without writing code.” So, if a designer wants to work on the web, should they take the time to learn this dastardly “code” or instead rely on software like Muse?

Read More

[bis-neulich-deactivated20120330]

[mirza]

[castleoflions]

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

castleoflions:

Look at this now.

[ryandonato-deactivated20130922]

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

lionskeleton:

via Six Revisions

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

Draft Annotations

Piece 1: This is a place-based feature article I wrote as an assignment for the MSU course WRA 355: Writing for Publication.  The article discusses the closing of Miller Elementary, a school in my hometown.  I had the opportunity to interview students, parents, teachers, and administrators to learn their perspectives on how the school has made a positive impact on the community.  My target publication for this piece was a local newspaper, so I did a rhetorical analysis of published articles, which were used as a model for my own writing.  This shows my ability to write in an engaging way, while respecting the conventions of article construction.  I organized and formatted the article using Adobe InDesign, which shows my ability to craft article layouts and formats that are readable, understandable, and possess the qualities of typical publication design.

Piece 2: This is a literary journalism piece I wrote as an assignment for the MSU course WRA 355: Writing for Publication.  The article focuses on my own experiences as a high school student during the college application process, while incorporating research to discuss an issue important to modern teenagers.  This piece shows my ability to convey voice through the written word, and to creatively communicate information in both objective and subjective ways.  I formatted the article layout using Adobe InDesign, and used Photoshop to create and manipulate the graphics.  This gave me the opportunity to be creative with my design while rethinking typical magazine-style presentation.

[forthosewhocantread-deactivated]

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

forthosewhocantread:

For Those Who Look To The Future For Fonts

ARTICLE: Futura Font’s Great Moments In Pop Culture

Because typography is fun!

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

Presentation Design

I'm not really sure what I would find for an example for this post, since the reading was on PowerPoint presentations, so I think I'll just discuss some of the main ideas that I took away from it.

From Reynolds' "Presentation Design":

"In the world of design, there is more than one solution to a single problem.  You need to explore, but ultimately you need to look for the most appropriate solution for the problem, given the context of your information.  Design is about making conscious decisions about inclusion and exclusion." (page 120)

I think this idea comes most into play when using white space to one's advantage in order to best apply the principles of good design.  But it also means that some information on slides of a presentation just isn't needed.  I've been given a lot of advice on how to make effective PowerPoints, but I think the best suggestion was that there should be hardly ANY text on the slides, if at all (this does not include titles, captions, or tables).  Because all of the main points will be included in the spoken part of the presentation, a presenter can use their slides to be really creative and visual.  This will make the presentation more engaging--why should the audience listen if they can read?  This idea operates in the reverse as well--why pay attention to the slides if the presenter is covering everything?  Either way, either the presenter or the slides have become pointless. Instead, the slides should contain helpful or visually interesting graphics (and not just stock photos, and probably only one per slide) that complement the talk to capture the audience's attention.  Keeping the content restrained in this matter, without out-of-control and tiring bullet lists, is also essential:

"The goal is to have the highest signal-to-noise ratio possible in your slides." (page 122)

"The picture superiority effect says that pictures are remembered better than words, especially when people are casually exposed to the information and the exposure is for a very limited time....Visual imagery appears to be a powerful mnemonic tool that helps learning and increases retention compared, say, to witnessing someone read words off a screen." (page 132)

"...modern presentations with slides and other multimedia have more in common with cinema (images and narration) and comics (images and text) than they do with written documents.  Today's presentations increasingly share more in common with a documentary film than an overhead transparency." (135)

Oh, it turns out that I actually did find a PowerPoint that was well designed!  They do in fact exist!

http://noteandpoint.com/2009/11/how-to-be-creative-2/

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

Here are some other websites I found that provide some helpful tips for creating a good professional portfolio:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/04/creating-a-successful-online-portfolio/

http://www.graphicdesignblog.org/impressive-graphic-designer-portfolios/

The above image is a screen capture from the home page of designer Daniele Volpin's portfolio.

http://www.glingadesign.com/

I like that all of the information is contained on a single page, with the secondary navigation (links to parts of the page) listed at the top.  This was similar to one of the designs I saw on the Beyond Words blog.  It makes the information architecture easy to understand, so the user won't become lost trying to navigate the site.

I also appreciate how simple the design is.  The content is most important, but the presentation is still classy and professional.  I suppose my only critique would be too make the type a bit more readable by increasing the size and creating more contrast between the colors of the text and the background, but on purely aesthetic grounds it is lovely, and works perfectly to communicate that the creator has terrific design skills.

I also like how the text in the header image changes each time the page is refreshed--it let's a bit of the designer's personality shine through without using an overly strong tone that might dominate the site...if that makes sense.  I guess I am trying to say that the designer lets their work speak for itself, which the designer accomplishes by showing a glimpse of the visual documents in the portfolio and then providing an annotation for each piece, which is something that I will have to do with my own portfolio.

Bottom line: I think it's a perfect marriage of content and presentation.  Sometimes creating something clean and simple and having it actually look nice is much harder than making something elaborate and flashy.  But when it's done right, minimalist design can be extremely effective (e.g. trends in visual advertising).

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

AS Creative Design

I thought I would include an example of a professional portfolio that I found that I really like, mostly because it shows that the person actually uses the skills they claim to have, and it also uses design to convey a creative identity and personality.  I just love everything about this site.  I don't think my professional portfolio will be as expertly designed and coded as this one, but I think it's a perfect example of what to strive for.

I also think this example applies to some of the readings/videos we had to watch this week.  I read "In the Workplace" interviews with Lisa Eldred (an editorial assistant and freelance editor), Emily Wenstrom (a managing editor), and Erin Riojas (an editor), because editing work is the kind of position that I am planning on pursuing after graduation.  I liked how they all gave similar pieces of advice: communicate with fellow professionals in your field, know grammar like the back of your hand, use style guides, keep up with a blog, follow professionals on Twitter, etc. (which was similar to what Kristin Byers talked about in her "Managing Your Digital Identity" video).  An interesting piece of advice that was new to me was the idea that you can teach yourself new skills during down time on the job.  Lisa Eldred said that she plays around with Photoshop and does tutorials, while two of Erin Riojas' three important professional sources were Dafont.com and Vector Art, even though neither of them have jobs that focus on design.  It is reassuring to me that there will still be opportunities for me to learn and be creative in a prospective job in the editing world; editing and publishing, like professional writing, is more than just knowing grammar and reading copy. 

This also fits in with the "12 Essentials" video series; you must recognize what specific skills are needed for a certain job, but at the same time never be afraid to keep learning, because no one can ever have fully developed professional skills (in other words "No one's ever received an award for being dumb." ;]).

[knowyourmeme]

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

knowyourmeme:

It’s been nearly a month since Friday became the thing running in the back of our heads here at the lab. After listening to it more times than anyone in their right mind should, I wondered: just what is Rebecca Black thinking? With this, I present to you a visual breakdown of Friday. Click for full size!

[birdlab]

[rhetoricaldesign-blog]

birdlab:

The French government asked Base to develop a Communications package for La Force de l’Art, an exhaustive exhibition about French contemporary art, in 2006. The event took place in Paris’s Grand Palais, which was undergoing renovations at the time. We took advantage of the building renovations to create a youthful approach to the event. A dripping version of the stencil typeface by Milton Glaser was redesigned by BaseLab to give us the basis for a larger visual communications system.