Many product images and icons with the color combinations red, white and black have been constructed throughout modern history: The Target bulls-eye, Coca-Cola and Wisconsin’s Bucky Badger are just a few examples. The Rhetoric of Black, White and Red illustrates the common use of these colors in advertising, depicting the cultural and emotional connections that they convey. Target’s commercials routinely employ the use of red and white, or red, white and black. Each of these colors is visually appealing on its own, but together the use is quite striking. The images shown are often lively, energetic and engaging. The viewer knows it is a commercial but is pulled in by the bold use of color and quality editing. Sometimes the spots do not even feature the items that they sell in store; instead they are selling the lifestyle, culture and pathos of the Target brand.
According to Caivano and Lopez, “the aim is that the receptor performs an action (to make or stop making something, to think or buy something)” (2003). For Target, this message is often introduced in television commercials, continued through mail advertising, and bridged via the company’s website. The message is completely realized at the store level, where the receptor aka “guest” in Target terminology, has chosen to walk into the red and white world of trying and buying. The color triad can finally engage the guest to the fullest. It is here that the guest will read signage in black text on white backgrounds, complemented by red bulls-eyes. It is a world made simple by these colors.
The following video clip on Youtube.com illustrates the common triad of red, white and black. This artistic commercial features professional dancers moving in Target colors and shapes. It is an elegant and aspirational look for the brand. Notice that there are no featured items to buy, just imagery. This lets the receptor/guest enjoy the brand without any pressure to buy.  It is a Target  kaleidoscope for the senses.
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In class, we discussed Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics," which is really the seminal work in well, understanding comics.  McCloud discusses just about every, and any aspect of comics that can be conceived, and our discussion on 'gutters' was interesting, as I hadn't read "Understanding Comics" in some ten years.

As an avid comics fan (buff?), I had always been told that Neal Adams was one of the genre-defining comics-book artists of his day (which happened to precede me by some 15 years).  As you can see in the examples to the right, his use of panel arrangement was completely "outside-the-box," to coin a phrase that came up in class.  That is not the interesting part, however.

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. But what interests me out of these is the artwork and how the artwork mimics the mixing of themes between rap and techno much in the same way the music does.

Arguably one of the most recognizable symbols in the Western cultural lexicon, or even that of Eastern cultures, is the silhouette of Mickey Mouse. Popularized in the late 1920s by a series of short films, America’s favorite rodent has come to represent the Walt Disney Studios and the Disney corporation at large.

The above comic by Robert Berry appears in his Ulysses “Seen” adaptation of the James Joyce novel Ulysses.

We watched "The Machine is Us/ing Us" and had an interesting class discussion on whether it was a scholarly work or not. It was not, perhaps, “scholarly”; but it was an argument, and it made me think about the sociology of internet communication.

During our in-class discussion of Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art," the composer brought up gutters, the space in between frames of a comic (or newspaper, cartoon or other media).  In a comic, as McCloud states in the image to the right, gutters "play host to the magic and mystery that are at the very heart of comics."  These gutters are vital, and can serve as more than a space to let the reader's mind wander.

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. But even when a site is usable, there are aesthetics that make a website a more enjoyable experience for the user. Color, formatting, and graphic elements can enhance usability by making a website visually appealing.

In Vitaly Friedman's article "10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware Of," the first item listed is  problematic hidden login links on websites. Friedman uses Backpack as an example because the login link is very small and placed right underneath a block of text that looks like an advertisement, rather than placing the login somewhere else on the page where it can be easily located.

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Of the recent readings for this course, I feel most compelled to comment on the writings of Jakob Nielsen. I had heard of him before, touted as the leading expert of usability. A great deal of the discussion in class was devoted to some apparent contradictions between his ethos and one of his now defunct websites. However, I noticed contradictions on the very page we were asked to look at for class.

Professor John Logie teaches us that comics have a place in academia. He teaches it in Visual Rhetoric. Why not? Comics are visual and they are graphic and they are certainly full of rhetoric. Comics teach us to engage ourselves with the comic we are viewing, on our own time, in our own space. Professor Logie teaches that Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" is an essential book to do just that, understand comics.
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