In my previous blog post, I explained my interdisciplinary. Read that post here if you haven't already.
As for Visual Rhetoric, I likewise maintain an interdisciplinary view. As a major in professional writing, I often view visual rhetoric as a book design or magazine layout. Pictures and chunks of information are arranged to guide the readers from one piece of information to another piece to depict a logical and coherent argument. Books, while rarer, can do this as well.
In "Slaughterhouse-Five", Vonnegut arranges drawings throughout the text narrative to complement the plot. In "House of Leaves," Mark Z. Danielewski takes textual space and visual rhetoric to a unique and ambitious level. Danielewski uses arguments in "Space of Poetics," by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, as a philosophical and literary foundation for writing and compiling "House of Leaves." As you can see depicted in the image below, Danielewski uses visual design principles to create an inter-textual narrative that adds greater depth and texture to the substance of the story.
As a student of psychology,
specifically human factors and UXD (user experience design), I've considered web
design as less a practice of aesthetics--as image and design for the sake of
the design--but a practice of human experience and interaction. How do users
experience and interact with the information presented? Digital writing
also considers the reader's experience through reading content,
interacting with content, and commenting on content. In some theories on
digital writing, a reader's comment gives them co-authorship of the piece. I've
written some about that here.
But to bring the argument back
to UX, designers are less concerned with the aesthetics of a website or app but
with the user’s experience of the design itself. This is the core of their
work. They will conduct case studies and report back with user journeys, and character
profiles, and analyze user pain points. For UX designers, this is a study in
visual rhetoric, and in some ways, kinesthetic and cognitive rhetoric.
But for graphic designers, this
is visual rhetoric.
Ok, so what about digital
writers? We must consider the reader’s experience on a visual level--that of
graphic and website designers--as well as an interactive level--that of UX
designers. For this blog, I utilized a free template created by Sadaf F. K. of Design
Bliss. But the template didn't work for my purposes, so I edited some of the HTML with my limited knowledge of such and altered some design and aesthetics. I made these changes
with consideration to the visual rhetoric of this blog.
Just as Vonnegut's illustrations and Danielewski's inter-textual compositions serve a narrative purpose inside their respective novels, the visual design of a blog should contribute to its overall rhetorical purpose--that is the argument it's trying to make or the story it's trying to tell.
Hey Kay! This 6-week course has been exhausting and I've already hit my quota of two responses, but I really just wanted to say that I genuinely appreciated the effort that you put into your blog. It was well-crafted enough visually that I (subconsiously) felt like, "Yes, she does deserve my actually reading what she said, instead of scanning/skimming to see if she said anything interesting." Also, I would be remiss if I did not express my appreciation also that you know of House of Leaves! It was a little delight for me to find that out about you.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I hope and pray you are well and that you are winding down this course relatively easily. :)