Blog #8

Why do you think the CRAP Principles are important in design?
Robin Willliam’s overall points out the CRAP principles as the basic way to become and produce first time graphic and layout designs. They are obvious techniques that most people could point out but the way that Williams describes them makes it seem that much simpler to a first timers. Williams seems to know that a lot of people out there are intimidated by design software’s and programs and it tends to stop them in their creative path, but the CRAP principles can direct a user even in word or an art program. In a simple word document you can incorporate the same techniques of repetition, eye lines, proximity, alignment, and contrast. To a lot of people simpler layouts are always more appealing and a lot of the time more successful in the audience they are reaching, the CRAP principles do just this. Plain and simple to assist any user.

Blog #7

After reading the two McCloud pieces, how do you think McCloud views comics as visually rhetorical?

As a rhetorical tool, using visuals and images to convey a message is very successful after reading McCloud comic piece. McCloud makes the point and views comics as a great tool to communicate valid information. As reading the comic piece I personally found it a lot easier to understand each individual point McCloud was making. The form of comics separates each point into its own enclosed area with no other distractions, as when reading the sentence before and after can easily overwhelm the reader. Usually I need to highlight individual sentences just to understand a single point the author is trying to make. Although using visuals to send a message doesn’t necessarily work successfully for everyone. If someone uses too many visuals with too many details it makes it difficult for the audience to unwrap and understand clearly. The visual tool is something that needs to be used to delicate balance. The text and the visual need to work together as a partner to show and explain in two different ways the point being conveyed. I believe using visuals and images in a scholarly way is a rising tool because of the technology and options we have in making a perfect visual for a message. Text is becoming so outdated and old school that many people don’t want to gravitate towards it. Its easier, faster, and more satisfying to view something to understand rather than reading through a chunk of text. We are slowly becoming addicted to the highest appealing image out there.

Blog #6

Can visuals make arguments? How do visuals make arguments? Give an example.

Visuals can make all kinds of arguments, most commonly to our emotions. The entire point of a visual image is to emotionally contact and touch the emotional sides of a viewer so that they will remember that image and what it represents. One of the most influential and emotional pictures in history is the photo of the Tiananmen Square Man. In this picture in specific the message is making a strong political standpoint. The photo of the anonymous man became very powerful and famous because he was simply standing in front of a column of tanks on an empty street with his shopping bag. The man became known as the ‘Tank Man’ or the ‘Unknown Rebel’. The image is making an argument that the chaos of war and fighting is ridiculous and there are so many innocent people affected all over the world. Because it is so obvious as to what the image is portraying the argument becomes even clearer and more influential. Yet besides the fact of an obvious image there are also images all over the world that do not have reference to anything we know in our culture. For an image to make an argument it should apply to the knowledge of a wide range of people. The image I have chosen has the ability to do that because anyone around the world can look at it and get the point, but an image that shows something that applies to only one culture, there ends up being a wide range of people around the world that have no connection or emotion to remember the image. Overall though visual can and do make arguments through the specific objects and images within the visuals.

Blog #5

Choose a company logo and write about its qualities as a picture, symbol, and a sign

The company logo that I have chosen is the GEM logo. The company is a new product line of drinks for women. My mom has been a part of the creation of the product with her best friends. GEM has launched with its signature drink GEM Keep it cool, designed in mind for women with menopause in need of hot flash and night sweat relief. There are four other drinks for mental acuity, stress relief, bone strength and anti-aging.

As a picture the logo is very simple making it obvious as to what it is. The picture is a winking eye and red lips of a woman in a circular form. It gives off the attitude of a feminine diva. The slogan underneath, “for womankind” lets every woman know that it was created and produced in mind of her and only her. The colors of the image give off cool and relaxed feelings, the exact feeling they hope their product gives the consumer.

As a symbol, the image represents the company as a whole and every message and hope they want to give their consumers. It’s a symbol of understanding, as if the company wants women to know they are on their side and no one is alone in the ups and downs of life. A symbol of relief and hope for a change. Overall the symbol represents womankind and that we are all in it together, not exactly the company and everything within it. As a sign, it catches consumers eye to remind them that it is there at there need and can bring change to ones life if they allow it. A sign to know where they can get more information or product. A sign that it exists. Most importantly It is a symbol of everything the product entails and new doors to be opened for suffering women.

Blog #4

“Look at your object of study in terms of rhetorical organization and rhetorical ‘devices.’ Specifically, discuss one rhetorical device mentioned by Horn (Synecdoche, Metonymy, or Metaphor) that you see in your object of study”

The article about metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche was pretty confusing for an everyday reader. To apply these terms to my digital device is challenging because the program I have chosen, indesign, is something that allows the user to make whatever they feel. Its almost a tool for creating these terms for the user. Indesign uses metaphor because the entire goal of the program itself is to create layouts for any media. Therefore it is designed to create metaphors almost. What I understand of metonymy is that it is something that is not called by its own name, or at least that’s how wikipedia helped me understand it, but in terms of indesign the program itself assists the user in creating layouts. In that sense someone may call the work their layout instead of their “indesign.” Then there is synecdoche, the most confusing and difficult to apply to my digital device. Overall it is a simultaneous understanding of something. Saying one thing and understanding it in a completely different way. This may happen throughout the entire program. While you use it you may think of an idea or something you want to do next, such as erase what you’ve just created, or crop a pictures, or even to color in an entire page. When you think of doing all these within the program your actually just pressing a button and magically changing a page to red, or cutting the edge of a picture with just a mouse. This is the best way I can understand synecdoche within my device. Overall they all intertwine to accomplish the same thing, something meaning something else.

Blog #3

How are visuals and multimedia rhetorical? Explain

I believe visuals and multimedia are rhetorical in modern day society simply because “for us, rhetoric is the human use of symbols to communicate.” Visuals and multimedia sources are mostly all made up of different types of symbols that trigger certain thoughts or emotions for everyone. The processes of our human brains visualizing different symbols and perceiving them are all rhetorical. When I see a symbol on a computer screen, maybe a company logo, I perceive it as something that represents a product or viewpoint and all of the information is represents, and what experience I have had with it in the past. “Rhetoric is the term that captures all of these processes.” Our reality is created by our own interpretation of symbols, and symbols are everything that is visual and multimedia sources are mostly composed of visuals. When we have an experience with a symbol and it generates certain emotions we will always remember is in that sense which all together is rhetoric. Yet everyone’s views of different symbols are different, no two people experience the exact same experience. “Humans construct the world in which they live through their symbolic choices.”

Blog #2

“Think about a certain digital device or software interface that you use on a regular basis and discus how you look through it (its transparency) and how you look at it (its reflective quality.)”

My computer is an obvious digital device that I use on a regular basis and contributes to many things in my every day life. The first thing I do every morning is check my email using my computer. When I first use my computer in the morning I am simply looking AT it. I see the figures, characters, shapes, colors, etc. on the screen in front of me. All of this completes the screens style of images, the decorum of the screen. To even begin to look through what im seeing I have to look AT it. Once I take in all of these aspects I can then begin to look through what I am seeing, interact with its transparency. I can use the images and create a thought. I can see through a word, a color, or a shape and depict a meaning from it. Maybe a feeling, opinion, a fact, or something new in the world such as news. My brain has to look AT these things to see THROUGH them. These images are learned at an early age so that when we see them they become “a transparent window into conceptual thought.” (pg. 266) Its just the same as looking at the logo of a company and knowing exactly what the product is. When I see the cougar emblem I know the meaning of Washington State University is behind it and everything that comes with that particular university.