Visual Rhetoric and Design ~created by CSU Instructor Jenny Levin ~ What is visual rhetoric? What are some good design principles? What is visual rhetoric? How might you use it in your public argument? How is it used? How might you use them?

Definition What is rhetoric? What are examples of visuals? What is visual rhetoric? Ask students to see if they can figure out the meaning of visual rhetoric. They were introduced to rhetoric earlier in the semester and they probably know some examples of visuals. Your answers may be something like this: Rhetoric is using language or other communication strategies to achieve a purpose with an audience. Visuals may include pictures (photos, drawings, cliparts), fonts, colors, or other design elements like spacing. Visual rhetoric is using visual elements to communicate a purpose with an audience.

Let’s Practice: CSU Admissions Page Show students the CSU admissions page. What is the purpose of this website? Who is the audience? What are some different aspects of visual rhetoric you see here? How are they used? Purpose: to encourage prospective students to study at CSU and give them information. Visual rhetoric: Color – green and gold colors Symbol – ram Spacing – easy to read. Font – clear, consistent, easy to see.

Images: The following images were taken from the CSU admissions web pages. What messages do they give to people who may be interested in studying at CSU? Discuss the various messages with students – see what ideas they have.

2 Discuss the various messages with students – see what ideas they have.

3 Discuss the various messages with students – see what ideas they have.

Using Design Principles C-R-A-P Criteria Contrast How different are the design elements? Repetition How are design elements repeated? Alignment How are the different ideas placed? Proximity Are similar ideas placed together? When analyzing and designing documents that contain visual rhetoric, we need to think about design carefully. Actually, all texts we create have this design element and we need to consider how we can achieve our purpose in a visual way. One way to think about this is the CRAP (or CARP) criteria. This criteria is taken from the following article: Klein, Michael J. and Kristi L. Shackelford. "Beyond Black on White: Document Design and Writing Formatting in the Writing Classroom." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 2. Available online through the WAC Clearinghouse: http://writingspaces.org/klein-schackleford--beyond-black-on-white Ideas from: Klein, Michael J. and Kristi L. Shackelford. "Beyond Black on White: Document Design and Writing Formatting in the Writing Classroom." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 2.

How are the C-R-A-P principles used? Ask students to consider the design elements in the same page they thought about earlier: How do we see CONTRAST, REPETITION, ALIGNMENT and REPETITION here? What effect do they have?