Visual Rhetoric... what is it?
I need to make a confession before
going forward. The word “rhetoric” was somewhat intimidating, or confusing and
unfamiliar to me before starting my Digital Writing online with Old Dominion
University and, it still makes me nervous and creates a small anxiety, or
mental block for me. So, in this post I’ll cover some visual rhetoric we
encounter all the time.
The word rhetoric is often associated
with the “nonsense” around a subject, for example, “This is just political
rhetoric we are hearing”. The word rhetoric is defined by Merriam-Webster as
“…the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing”. In Digital Writing,
visual rhetoric is the term used to cover the many ways a reader may be
influenced through images, colors, arrangements and even the font of letters
used. Four basic components of visual design: use of type, use of space and
layout, use of color, and use of images. (Ramage, 2009)
Table 1 from Ramage’s Chapter 9,
Conducting Visual Arguments, provides some examples of fonts and their uses. A
big take-away here is that Sans serif fonts lacks the extensions, or decorative
qualities on the letters, that are present in Serif fonts; take for example,
the difference between T and T. Serif fonts are considered better for long
reads and Sans serif are considered tiring to read for prolonged periods. The
is a more marked difference in using specialty fonts and, for example, we would
not expect a legal
document or forms to professionally portray themselves through this type of
font. (Ramage, 2009).
Much like the rooms in a house have a
purpose and good decoration can help rooms flow for better use and enjoyment,
the use and layout of digital space must be considered when creating content.
The page set up on my blog, figure 1, was a default and seems to have made good
use of items such as portion of text to white space, margins and paragraphs.
Paragraphs here are formatted as rectangles, if the same information was
formatter in shorter paragraphs, or squares, it would give the impression of
presenting more text for the reader. Elements can also be highlighted by
arranging, or presenting, the information in lists, tables or sidebars.
Figure 1. Find resources for digital writing blog
The use of color greatly influences
emotion and how pleasant a visual item is to consume. For example, political
campaign smear adds often use black, grey and red to emphasize the negative
message being sent about an opponent. I chose the colors on my blog because I
believed the white text against a black background would be easy on the eyes
for the reader. I chose a default pallet with minimal colors because the
arguments here are academic, a magazine might use color more lavishly (Ramage,
2009).
I believe “A picture is worth a
thousand words” summarizes the persuasive (rhetoric) power an image or graphic
can have on an audience if used properly. If not used properly, images might
detract, or even confuse the audience. In the textbook, Ramage effectively
proved this point by introducing the image of a coat hanger in an abortion campaign.
In this blog, my intent was that a single image of text books stacked up would
not detract the reader and would emphasize the academic setting, and possibly
give the reader the feeling of reaching digital writing in a library setting.
Understanding visual rhetoric is not
only important to improving the odds that the message, as intended by the
writer, will reach its intended audience; it is also very important the we are
aware of how visual rhetoric might influence us so that we can better evaluate
material because of its content and not just its visual appeal. Do you find yourself thinking all this
material is irrelevant to you? While doing research for a class, did you
determine which website to trust based on the “feeling” you got in the first 5
seconds you spent on the page?
References
Ramage, J. D. (2009). Argument in
composition. West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press.
Martinez, B. (2023). Retrieved from https://screendigitalwriting.blogspot.com/
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