When form and content conflict...

What is the problem with this ad?  Well, several things but first of all the form your eye is drawn to is the pregnant woman's body, then you are shocked by the fact that she is holding a beer.  When you look closer, you realize that the ad is for a non alcoholic beer, but still this ad just doesn't work.  The point is for people that are pregnant to still be able to enjoy a beer, but this ad's form leads you to think it's classy even though the beer is in a nice beer glass.  Not only does this ad not utilize any of the CRAP principles (except maybe contrast), but the way it is designed does not make you want to care about the product at all.  I can't imagine anyone looking at this ad with anything but disgust.  The form of the ad is just like a regular beer ad, but this is not a regular beer ad at all.  This ad does not work at all, mostly because of the discrepancy between form and content.

Why are the CRAP principles important in design?

• Robin Williams is the go to person for introductory graphic design information, mostly because of her easy to understand CRAP principles.  So why are they so important?  Well, the principles themselves aren't that important, I think anyone who is a good designer would naturally tend to do the things she suggests.  However, the way she presents them is easy to understand and by making a few minor changes to a flyer, business card or poster by following her rules, anyone can make a better ad or business card.  Contrast, repitition, alignment and proximity are things that anyone can understand and fix, and voila, anyone can become an amateur graphic designer.  Most of the examples in her book can be created in a word document, so I think part of the reason her principles are important is once again accesibility and usability, the same thing that's important in any rhetorical device.  Williams' advice is for the regular person and doesn't require special knowledge of InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator or Dreamweaver to follow it.  Considering repetition, alignment, proximity and especially contrast can quickly make a design look way better and lead the viewer's eye through the page, just like any good piece of art!  I feel like Robin Williams' design principles are a good starting point for design, but that's pretty much what they are:  some simple rules that can make any design a little bit better under most conditions.  Of course I think the most important thing is that you are completely happy with anything you design, and I think the CRAP principles are just like any other rules-good most of the time, but every one in a while it's ok for them to be broken.

How does McCloud view comics as visually rhetorical?

I think McCloud views comics as visually rhetorical because there was a section where he discusses how art and pictures are judged using completely separate standards.  In a given comic, the visuals can be more important, less important or equally important to the words.  I was also given the impression during the reading that most people writing a comic would try to make both the words and pictures necessary so the reader pays attention to both parts.  This section was effective, but I felt like in the rest of the reading I hardly looked at the pictures at all except for where pictures were being used as an example, making the pictures unnecessary for much of what he was trying to say.  I also thought it was interesting that he said both "a huge range of human experiences can be portrayed in comics through either words or pictures" as well as "comics have become firmly identified with the art of storytelling."  Both these points made me think more about comics and their effectiveness.  I think that (sometimes) for someone to fully understand a concept, you need words and pictures for them to fully understand what you're trying to tell them.  Assuming people think that visuals are rhetorical in many cases, then it also seems to me that by containing pictures alone comics would be considered visually rhetorical.  All in all, I feel like McCloud's overall point was that comics can be very effective because they contain both words and pictures and that both of them combine to make a stronger rhetorical statement than many other forms of multimedia.

Can visuals make arguments? How do visuals make arguments? Give an example.

Not only can visuals make arguments, but they can make them in many different ways, most obviously through ads and political cartoons. The biggest way visuals make arguments is by appealing to the emotions of the viewer. However, written or spoken articles are sometimes able to explain things a lot better than visual arguments because visual arguments rely heavily on kairos. For example, in the Birdsell reading, there is a political cartoon and it says that anyone could understand it just by looking at it, but I couldn’t and soon enough I understood why. They said the cartoon was referring to Soviet communism, something I don’t know much about because it was before my time.  If I had been looking at it at the time the cartoon was published, I probably would have understood it right away. I feel like this is the biggest weakness of visual argument, that it relies on timing. The Blair article (which I didn’t like very much) mentioned the very famous United Colors of Benetton ad campaign having to do with racism. I think that it's such a good example of visual argument, and additionally during the time it was published it was groundbreaking.  When I look at it now I think that that IS the way the world thinks, but at the time it was published that was not the way things were and I think that although the ads were controversial, they did a good job of showing how ridiculous racism is, in a way that could only be done through visuals.

If you look at this ad, you see Jessica Simpson advertising beer.  It says "Be smart, drink smart."  This was kind of an interesting pick by the company because Jessica Simpson was considered not very smart after the show Newlyweds.  I don't think that's really the case, but I'm surprised they picked her for this particular campaign.  However, choosing a woman who's considered sexy such as Jessica Simpson markets to both men and women-this is a beer that a girl can feel ok drinking because Jessica drinks it too, and men might think that by drinking this beer they would attract a woman like Jessica.  The name of the beer also matches Jessica's clothing-Stampede sounds like something country, and she's wearing a cowboy hat and a blouse sitting in hay.  From the picture alone you can tell a lot about what kind of audience the company is trying to sell their product to.

Choose a company logo and write about its qualities as a picture, symbol and sign

Starbucks has probably one of the most recognizable logos in the world.

As a picture:  The picture is just a three tone picture with a picture of a mermaid (who was originally topless, but caused too much controversy) surrounded by a circle that says Starbucks Coffee on it.  It's reminiscent of graphic design in the 90s, probably around the time Starbucks created their logos.

As a symbol:  The logo is a symbol of the company as a whole.  When people see the Starbucks logo, they have an immediate reaction whether it be a good one or a bad one.  Some people think this logo symbolizes a cup of coffee you can always count on, while others think of it as a sign of monopoly that's putting smaller coffee shops out of business.  The logo is the symbol of the company as a whole, although I think it is most often associated with the individual shops and not, for example, the marketing team or the business side of the company.

As a sign:  While the logo is just a logo by itself, the logo is used as a sign to signal to people that the building is a Starbucks Coffee or that a Starbucks is nearby.

Overall it is clear that the logo as a symbol is the most important use for it and that a logo is what allows a company to be recognized and memorable.

My Object and Rhetorical Devices

I have to say I had trouble understanding the concepts of synecdoche, metonymy and metaphor in relation to multimedia, especially things not heavy on text like most of the objects the class chose. Hopefully we’ll talk about it more in class, but I’m going to give the prompt a try anyways, sorry if I’m totally wrong! My object of study, the website Picnik (a free, online, photo editing program) I think uses metaphor in the way it is set up. The website has a cute name that both references pictures and a picnic, an activity that most people think is fun. Their website looks sunny with clear skies like the perfect day for a picnic. From there, you go through steps to edit your photo to create a finished product. In a way, the way the website looks and the way it’s designed (as you click on “Get Started Now” the page loads with a bar saying things like “laying the blanket down” and “buttering the bread”) give the website a lighthearted, fun feeling that’s supposed to be a metaphor for your feeling when you use the site. It also gives you a clear idea what the site is supposed to be for. Picnik.com was designed for personal use for people who like to scrapbook and make fun photos, especially those that can’t afford Photoshop or don’t want to pay that much for a program that they only want to use the more “fun” parts of it.

How are visuals and multimedia rhetorical?

Visuals and multimedia are rhetorical because basically everything is rhetorical, especially visuals. In multimedia, just the way it’s presented is in itself rhetorical. The look of a webpage or an iPod or a phone tells you so much about it. Colors argue that something is more fun, whereas a blackberry looks like it’s for professional use. If you think about websites alone, so many things in the presentation are rhetorical from the colors, to the pictures to more technical things like whether all the links work and whether the page loads quickly or not. These things can make the difference between the appearance of a professional business or a website full of cocktail recipes. For example, look at the difference between the Academics front page on the WSU website and the front page of the website for Cosmopolitan magazine. I think most people would agree they clearly have different intentions, even though they are both made to distribute information.