Introduction to Visual Rhetoric: The Basics

Romberger

Visual Rhetoric Definition

• Visual rhetoric applies the rhetorical situation to decision making about images and document layout

• Visual rhetoric understands that images carry meaning and can be analyzed and interpreted

• Visual rhetoric understands that design and images should assist the audience’s ability to read and understand

Rhetorical Situation

• Audience - those who will use the document; you must consider their previous experience with similar documents and the topic– conventions - audiences have expectations

based on their previous experience

• Purpose - what you want the document to accomplish

• Context - circumstances in which your readers use your document

Design Strategies

• Arrangement

• Clarity

• Conciseness

• Tone

• Ethos

Arrangement

• Alignment

• Proximity

• Repetition

• Contrast

Alignment

• Items on the page are lined up with each other, both horizontally and vertically.

• There are three basic alignments: centered, left justified and right justified.

Proximity

• Refers to the relationships that items develop when they are close together.

• Implies items are related (for example, the bullets on this list appear related because they are in close proximity to each other).

Repetition

• Refers to the idea that designers should repeat certain elements to tie the disparate parts of a document together.

• Makes it seem like the individual pages or slides are all part of the same document or presentation.

Contrast

• Establishes a hierarchy of information

• Can be obtained by manipulating font (style and size), color, background designs, etc.

• Establishes a focal point

Clarity

• Helps the receiver decode the messages.

• Can be achieved through choice of readable typefaces - – Serif for body text

– Sans serif for headings and graphic (display)

• Enhanced through spacing between characters, choice of color

Conciseness

• Refers to the visual bulk and intricacy of the design

• Means generating designs that are appropriately succinct within a particular situation

• Achieved through controlling details in images, variations in size, ornateness, and spacing of text

Tone

• Demonstrates attitude toward readers and subject

• Achieved through style of type and images relative to subject and audience

Ethos

• Refers to building trusting relationship between writer and reader

• Sense of character and credibility established through creating both credible, interesting content and design that is appealing and useful in helping the audience read and

understand the document

Interdependence

• Each of these strategies is interdependent:

– with each other

– with the verbal content

Recap of Terms

• Arrangement– Contrast– Repetition– Alignment– Proximity

• Clarity• Conciseness• Tone• Ethos

Web Site Examples

• www.apple.com

• www.zingermans.com

Sources

Robin Williams’s The Non-Designer’s Design Book (Peachpit Press, 1994)

• Charles Kostelnick and David Roberts’s Designing Visual Language (Allyn and Bacon, 1998)