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...