One thing that has stuck with me from the readings so far
this semester was the Phillips articles claim that advertising has steadily
relied more and more on images to sell products. Various ways of using images
were examined and some of these are quite sophisticated, occupying different
arenas of richness and complexity. The typology of visual rhetoric provided
shows nine distinct types of images as visual rhetoric. Furthermore, according
to Phillips the more complex the visual structure and the richer the meaning
operation, the more successful the ad will be. When comparing such complexity
with old advertisements, it is obvious to me that marketers have adopted a lot
more refined toolkit. When I think of old advertisements, there is usually an
image of the product or a person using it accompanied by some sort of tagline
and a large block of text explaining the product. Modern ads utilize artificial
images to convey the products capabilities. For example, the tide ad where the
cup of detergent contained an image of clouds is a sophisticated metaphor that
needs no additional information other than the name of the product. Reading
text to be convinced is both time consuming and by no means guaranteed. By
utilizing visual methods of persuasion, the target audience absorbs the message
quickly and almost unintentionally and is thus persuaded much more readily. It
is easy to see why advertisement has steadily shifted towards using
sophisticated images rather than text to sell products—it affects us almost
without our consent.
Trap. The combination of the genres of trance and rap usually through sound mixing and editing, has become a staple of parties and festival shows. They share similar use of synth, heavy base and spoken words to create music.
When we talked in class about usability and the internet, it sounded like the conclusion as to what makes a usable website is simplicity. Creating a website to serve a very obvious purpose is the key to usability.
Every day we are faced with multiple typefaces: the good, the bad and the ugly. Some help us to read faster and more clearly, some to invoke a specific feeling or emotion, all the while persuading us to do something (or buy something).
... and how clashing implications continue to shape our reactions to these colors.
Depending on the region and cultural upbringing, one may have different connotations associated with the colors black, white, and red.
Depending on the region and cultural upbringing, one may have different connotations associated with the colors black, white, and red.
When talking about the ethics and rhetoric of data displays in class, I brought up the example of geographic information system (GIS) and their technique of interpolation.
"The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint" makes the assertion that:
The core ideas of teaching- explanation, reasoning, finding
things out, questioning, content, evidence, credible authority not patronizing
authoritarianism-are contrary to the cognitive style of PowerPoint.
The core ideas of teaching- explanation, reasoning, finding
things out, questioning, content, evidence, credible authority not patronizing
authoritarianism-are contrary to the cognitive style of PowerPoint.
When I first pulled out Tufte's packet on Power Point, it looked like one of the most boring texts on the planet. 30 pages on the style of Power Point? But as I read, I started to see his point and even found myself laughing at certain parts (talking about the “stupefied audience”).
Since media technology has advanced past the typewriter, the capabilities of visual, and eventually digital, rhetoric using images have grown exponentially. By appealing to different human attitudes and emotions, digital images have the ability of persuasion and gaining compliance alike.
Often referred to as graffiti, tagging, or more negatively as vandalism, street-art has been around for 40ish years as it was birthed in the 70 but only gained a real popularity in the mid-80’s.
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