|
Assignment
3: Visual Design Part I For the next two assignments (Visual Design I and Visual Design II) you'll need to create a small collection of sample advertisements or information-heavy texts that are published in relatively small formats-- four by six inches or a little bigger. I'll give you examples in class. We're looking for examples of both poor or problematic designs AND aesthetically pleasing and rhetorically effective designs. You can use examples of excellence as sources of inspiration for Part II of this sequence. Visual Design I asks you to anaylze visual designs. Visual Design II asks you to redesign one of your samples. Visual Design Part I For Tuesday, February 12: Read Robin Williams in The Non-Designer's Design Book, pp. 11 - 72. Bring to class a small collection of designs--some poor, some good. We may have a very short and simple quiz on Williams to assure that you're ready to work. Your score will lightly impact your grade for Visual Design I. Working in groups or with partners, select two sample texts: one poorly designed and one competently designed. Examine the features of both through the lens that Robin Williams provides: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity. Write up your two analyses as follows: 1. What is your sense of the rhetorical situation
for each text? What do the writers want readers to know or do? What will
these readers do on reading the text? What should they do? You'll not be redesigning these samples--that comes next. Pedagogical Goals: When you successfully complete this assignment, you'll be entirely familiar with the Williams scheme for analyzing visual designs. You'll be ready to do some designing yourself. Deliverables: |