Today1) Icebreaker

2) Finishing up what we had from last time– discussion

3) A tragedy and a solution: defining visual rhetoric

4) Applying that visual rhetoric definition and our accrued skills. AKA: deep analysis of images

5) A look toward design

6) Homework

Icebreaker1) Name

2) If your friends were asked to describe you with a single song, what do you think they’d pick?

Quick visual digression

If you’re in the other class, you’ll see even more of these later, but I thought these two typographical images were so interesting they warranted a double-dip.

From http://inspirationfeed.com/inspiration/typography-inspiration/50-remarkable-examples-of-typography-design-3/

From http://inspirationfeed.com/inspiration/typography-inspiration/50-remarkable-examples-of-typography-design-3/

Wysocki

“Children’s books often have very large faces, which are then scaled down somewhat for young adult books, which are then scaled down again for adult texts.”

Wysocki

“Letters have shape because of their typefaces. Because typefaces are a major visual strategy for a text’s composers to signal the genre into which the text is to fit, and because the choice of different typefaces can signal argumentative moves in a text, it is worth giving typefaces—their categories and histories—some attention”

Barthes

"If our reading is satisfactory, the photograph analyzed offers us three message: a linguistic message, a coded iconic message, and non-coded iconic message.”

The rhetoric of an image is specific to the extent that it is subject to the physical constraints of vision but general to the extent that "figures are never more than formal relations of elements." ---the culture you're from affects how you see/interpret an image

Barthes

• Denoted (non-coded) is the actual meaning.

• Connotated (coded) is what you perceive as the message

• Linguistic message is the text. Without this, the image is open to too much interpretation. The viewer must be guided a little to the meaning they (the creator) want the viewer to see

Barthes

• In every society various techniques are developed intended to fix the floating chain of signifieds in such a way as to counter the terror of uncertain signs

• The psyche is its own language... Each person is going to interpret images differently regardless of the other meanings associated with it, because of personal experience and how the image speaks and appeals to them

Benjamin

The overall message of the piece is that he first introduced the concept of aura. Within section VII, Benjamin introduces the idea that photographs and film are made to be reproduced, so that we interpret and accept them differently than something such as a one-of-a-kind painting, which is much more unique.

Benjamin

In section VII Benjamin says, “The reactionary attitude toward a Picasso painting changes into the progressive reaction toward a Chaplin movie.” By having the ability to be reproduced much easier, it changes the reaction that the masses have to it. The exposure that people have to paintings and artwork that are not easily or able to be reproduced is much less than the exposure that people have to film and photographs .

Benjamin

Benjamin also says, “Painting simply is in no position to present an object for simultaneous collective experience, as it was possible for architecture at all times, for the epic poem in the past, and for the movie today.”

Benjamin

An current example to help illustrate what Benjamin is saying is comparing a high-end, sought after shoes, such as Christian Louboutin, to an easy to get a hold of brand, like Sketchers. In this example, Louboutins could represent a Picasso painting, while the Sketchers can represent the Chaplin movie.

Kress

“The sign - a complex message of words, of letters, of colour and font-types with all their cultural resonances - reflects the interests of its designer as much as the designer’s imagined sense of those who will see and read the sign. The sign is based on a specific rhetorical purpose, and intent to persuade with all means possible those who pass by and notice it.”

Kress

Designers intent is for the audience to automatically relate to the images and formulate a specific intended meaning. With McDonald’s sign for instance, everyone knows that it will be Western food that will be served.

Kress

“In one sense, colours work similarly: I have encountered the colour ‘red’ in many instances, as in “red light district”, as a colour of lipsticks…Words have their histories, but they also refer; they name things (as nouns) or actions (as verbs) or attributes (as adjectives) or as relations of location (as prepositions), and so on.”

KressThe same image or phases can have different meanings to the people of different cultures. The swastika symbolizes harmony in many Indian religions. But in many other cultures, this symbol is associated with the Nazis and intolerance.

Dragons in the Chinese culture symbolizes against evil, but in Christianity it has long represented Satan.

The day we wrote up our collaborative def……something ate my saved PPT, and so Microsoft restored it to it’s pristine pre-edit form. Boo-hiss.

But we can rebuild it. And we’re going to do that, based on what we’ve learned since.

But this time, I want to form the definition a little differently. We’ve learned all these skills, so I want to take a sustained look at a few images, do some analysis, and as we do so, take notes. At the end ,we’ll write a new definition.

Things to think about…

1) Which of those posters is the most interesting?

2) Which makes the best argument for the show?

3) Which does the best job to appeal to your personal interest?

4) What strategies are employed, and to what ends?

Things to think about…

1) Why the change? *note– it’s more dire here*2) What does each logo represent?3) What makes the second one a better fit? 4) What is gained and what is lost in this change-

over?

Visual rhetoric is…

…

For Thursday:

Read for class: Kimball & Hawkins Chapter 2, Golombisky & Hagen Chapters 1-3, and Missy is Missing

And please do this much of Design Task 3: look around campus, or around town, and find a flier or poster you feel doesn’t work well. Take a picture of it, or take the flier itself, and bring it to class.