Digital Photography: Communication, Identity, Memory    

Taking photographs seems no longer primarily an act of memory intended to safeguard a family's pictorial heritage, but is increasingly becoming a tool for an individual's identity formation and communication. Digital cameras, cameraphones, photoblogs and other multipurpose devices are used to promote the use of images as the preferred idiom of a new generation of users. The aim of this article is to explore how technical changes (digitization) combined with growing insights in cognitive science and socio-cultural transformations have affected personal photography. The increased manipulation of photographic images may suit the individual's need for continuous self-remodelling and instant communication and bonding. However, that same manipulability may also lessen our grip on our images' future repurposing and reframing. Memory is not eradicated from digital multipurpose tools. Instead, the function of memory reappears in the networked, distributed nature of digital photographs, as most images are sent over the internet and stored in virtual space.

van Dijck, Jose. Visual Communication (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Photography>Visual Rhetoric

Do These Serifs Make Me Look Phat? Conveying Personality with Typeface

Explores some possible approaches to understanding typeface 'personality,' including empirical research and scholarly discussion, in the hopes of generating more discussion about how we can understand and use typeface personality when creating organizational identity packages.

Striker, Amy. Orange Journal, The (2005). Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric

Document Design

This course will teach you to * identify and discuss principles of reading comprehension, cognitive psychology, human factors, and graphic design that apply to technical documents * analyze and evaluate the design of existing documents and recommend appropriate revisions * design and test documents for maximum usability

Dragga, Sam. Texas Tech University (2002). Academic>Courses>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

Effective Technical Graphics  

This presentation examines ineffective technical graphics with problems in simplicity, orientation, and scale. It identifies principles of effective graphic communication that could prevent such problems, and clarifies objectives and techniques in designing editing and preparing technical graphics for printed documents and briefing materials. Graphics principles illustrated by transparencies include avoiding clutter, orienting properly, controlling scales, checking the content, and avoiding extraneous graphics. message, and that the table title or figure caption focuses clearly on the subject of the graphic.

Samson, Donald C., Jr. STC Proceedings (1993). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Visual Rhetoric

Effective Visual Communication  

Communication conveys 'facts, concepts and emotions.' To convey something, one requires a language and a medium. A language requires letters, words, sentences and rules of usage (=grammar).

Mullangath, Sinoj. STC India (2003). Articles>Communication>Visual Rhetoric>Emotions

The Effects of Contrast and Density on Visual Web Search

This study evaluated the effects of white space on visual search time. Participants were required to search for a target word on a web page with different levels of white space, measured by level of text density. Screens were formatted with one of four types of graphical manipulation, including: no graphics, contrast, borders and contrast with borders under two levels of overall density and three levels of local density. Results show that search times were longer with increased overall density but significant differences were not found between levels of local density. Only the use of contrast was found to be significant, resulting in an increase in search time.

Weller, Donnelle. Usability News (2004). Design>Web Design>Visual Rhetoric>Search

Emotional Design: Communicating an Experience

Today communicating is not always about a single message but an entire experience. One of the reasons the Web and the Internet has gained in popularity is not only because of its commercialization but because users can dynamically interact with it. Walker Gibson uses the term 'mock reader' to describe when a reader accepts the role within a story that an author has presented. The authors of Web sites, the designers, create an experience that immerses the site visitor or viewer into the Web site. A successful Web site designer has the ability to create a 'mock Web visitor' who becomes completely immersed emotionally in the site the designer has created.

Chinn, Darryl. EServer (2001). Design>Web Design>Visual Rhetoric>Emotions

English 5369 Topics and Genres in Rhetoric and Composition: Visual Rhetoric2007

This interdisciplinary course focuses on studying and researching the role of rhetoric in the development of visual elements in texts. Students will be asked to both analyze and design visual texts, to analyze and critique ways in which visual rhetoric is defined, and to conduct primary research on an element of visual rhetoric.

Garza, Susan Loudermilk. Texas A and M University (2007). Academic>Courses>Rhetoric>Visual Rhetoric

'Faces of the Fallen' and the Dematerialization of US War Memorials    

The advent of internet technology has enabled the process of memorialization of those killed in US military conflicts to keep pace with the casualties themselves and, as such, has marked a shift in both the ideology of the war memorial as symbol and the ideology-driven media use of those symbols. This article argues that a process of increasing humanization and specificity enabled by the information architecture of the internet has led to a form of `war memorial', exemplified by www.facesofthefallen.org, that emphasizes decontexualized human loss at the expense of a coherent representation of a military nature for the loss itself.

Grider, Nicholas. Visual Communication (2007). Articles>Web Design>Visual Rhetoric>History

Font Types: Affecting Meaning

In the first lesson on font type I highlighted how they can be used to make information easier to understand, and how the look of the font accomplishes that. Here I'd like to discuss how fonts can actually affect the meaning of that information.

Lanier, Clinton. sense and usability (2007). Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric

From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing      

In an attempt to bring composition studies into a more thoroughgoing discussion of the place of visual literacy in the writing classroom, I argue that throughout the history of writing instruction in this country the terms of debate typical in discussions of visual literacy and the teaching of writing have limited the kinds of assignments we might imagine for composition.

George, Diana. CCC (2002). Articles>Education>Rhetoric>Visual Rhetoric

From Pen to Print: The New Visual Landscape of Professional Communication     

Visual design has played an important role in the historical development of professional communication. The technology of laser printing has reestablished the importance of visual language in functional communication, transforming contemporary document design and redefining its relation to the traditions of handwritten, typewritten, and printed text. During this period of transition, three factors will shape the new visual language: (a) the development of a visual rhetoric that represents design as an integral part of the message rather than merely as external "dress," (b) the rediscovery of aesthetics as a legitimate factor in text design, and (c) the use of empirical research--particularly context-specific research--to guide the document design process.

Kostelnick, Charles. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1994). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Printing

Frozen Memories: Unthawing Scott of the Antarctic in Cultural Memory    

This article explores the staging of memory and death and the connotative differences within still photographs and film. It examines the tenses that can be inferred in reading photographs and film through examples drawn from representations of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13 and Captain Scott's journey to the South Pole taken by Herbert Ponting, and in the 1948 film _Scott of the Antarctic_.

Barwell, Claire. Visual Communication (2007). Articles>Multimedia>Visual Rhetoric

Graphic Design

Graphic design is everywhere, in every product, package, poster, and product of the modern world. Although the graphic design discipline was created less than a century ago, the world has since come to rely upon it. The world simply cannot function without graphic design and graphic designers. Yet graphic design is broader than any other creative profession. It is the third largest profession in the United States, far ahead of more commonly understood and respected vocations such as attorney, accountant, and educator. Graphic designers, who run the gamut from after-hours moonlighter through freelancer, solo- and team-creative, to agency and corporate designers, work in every city, town, and village in the world. Graphic design impacts everything and everyone.

Burke, Pariah S. Designorati (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

Guidelines for Designing and Evaluating the Display of Information on the Web    

These guidelines are intended to assist Web designers, authors, and editors in their efforts to create Web pages that effectively reveal—rather than obscure or confuse—the information they are trying to present. These guidelines are also intended to be used to assist in the evaluation of existing Web sites. Of course, the design of a Web site can, to some degree, be modified by the user or by the characteristics of the browser or monitor enlisted to display it. The guidelines, consequently, acknowledge that in a very real sense, users may also assume the role of designer. The guidelines, therefore, are also intended to help users make informed decisions about how to make a display easier to use.

Williams, Thomas R. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>Visual Rhetoric

Hearing Type

Understanding the dynamic qualities of typography through analogies with sound and music.

Armstrong, Frank. AIGA (2005). Design>Typography>Visual Rhetoric>Audio

How to Find the Perfect Color  

Getting that just-right color is part art, part science. We'll show you.

Before and After. Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric>Color

How to Use Images to Convey Themes  

Advances in technology have democratized the process of illustrating documents such as brochures, reports, and websites. With digital cameras, scanners, and a wide variety of stock illustrations available, technical communicators need not rely on graphic designers to choose images for their documents. However, conveying a theme or concept through a series of images can be a difficult task, and literature says little about choosing images to convey a theme. This paper synthesizes results of available literature and looks to theories of visual rhetoric to fill in the gaps regarding images and themes. Results of a survey show that readers of more easily identify themes when connections between words and images are clear

Willerton, Russell. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

Identity in Sheep's Clothing  

Can an identity exude moral or ethical attitudes? In the past, product and business identities that functioned well were bound to a person or family that over long periods delivered quality and dependable goods or services. However, in these times of runaway and rollover mergers, restructuring, and reengineering, there is no time for anyone to assess the real characteristics that make up these newly emerging companies and conglomerates. What are they? Who is behind them? Corporate wolves or sheep in Gucci clothing?

Winkler, Dietmar. University of Alberta (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

"If You Can't Handle This, I Am Sorry"

Literacy has always been a material, multimedia construct but we only now are becoming aware of this multidimensionality and materiality because computer technologies have made it possible for many people to produce and publish multimedia presentations.

Faigley, Lester. University of Texas (1999). Articles>Web Design>Visual Rhetoric

Increasing a Reader's Interest and Comprehension Through Basic Information Design

If you present information in multiple media, with complementary information, that address multiple learning styles, you increase a reader’s interest and comprehension by 65%.

Lynn, Michelle Corbin. Carolina Communique (1999). Design>Publishing>Visual>Visual Rhetoric

Influence of Burke and Lessing on the Semiotic Theory of Document Design: Ideologies and Good Visual Images of Documents    

The syntactic aspect of semiotic theory, especially its "aesthetic principle," is very influential in document design theories and practices. It has its roots in Burke's and Lessing s gender-related theories of images. Thus, it is laden with ideologies: it embodies our patriarchal attitudes and our iconophobia. Employing the semiotic theory in document design, we are making choices to reinforce the gender-related ideology in Burke's and Lessing's theories. It is time for us to re-conceive the "aesthetic principle" by de-emphasizing it and to adopt the reconciliation approach to design effective documents targeted at various rhetorical situations.

Ding, Daniel D. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric>Theory

Integrating Graphics with Text  

A teacher at the University of Memphis, Albers describes a two-tiered assignment he developed to help students address problems they encounter when trying to integrate text and graphics.

Albers, Michael J. Intercom (2000). Articles>Rhetoric>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

International Visual Literacy Association

IVLA is a not-for-profit association of educators, artists, and researchers dedicated to the principles of visual literacy. IVLA was formed for the purpose of providing education, instruction and training in modes of visual communication and the application through the concept of visual literacy to individuals, groups, organizations, and to the public in general. Our members represent a wide range of disciplines including the arts, sciences, education, communication, business, videography, photography, instructional technology, health, and computer applications. We hope you will feel free to join us in the lively debates of our field, and we look forward to forming lasting professional and personal friendships.

International Visual Literacy Association. Organizations>Graphic Design>Rhetoric>Visual Rhetoric

An Introduction to Visual Communication  

A reader's overall comprehension is best when text is appropriately combined with graphics in a document. This introductory workshop on visual communications explores different leaning styles and information mediums and examines how a communicator can best combine words with graphics to increase reader interest and comprehension. The workshop also examines basic rules of text and graphic design and finally discusses the appropriate integration of text and graphics.

Chiricosta, Tracey C. and Alice A. Jones. STC Proceedings (1993). Design>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric