For this project, you will create an image-and-text-based argument using Adobe Photoshop and other design software. This argument should arise from your focal topic, which we’ll develop together in class/conference. Like any argument, your design should identify a specific audience and purpose. Your project’s purpose is to “re-brand” a particular corporation, organization, social cause, or political candidate/party. As this particular purpose will continue to drive all your digital projects for this class, you’ll need to think about this visual-verbal design – which can function as a logo, print ad, or viral image – as part of a larger PR campaign.
You can create any visual-verbal text that you want. The key is that it combines text and images and is targeted for a specific location or venue, either online or in print. For example, you could create an ad (for a specific publication), a flyer (for a specific student organization to post around campus), a billboard (located in a specific city), an invitation (to a specific event), or a new logo for a corporation or candidate, etc. You face certain design/formatting issues with printed pieces that you won’t face if you’re designing something that will live exclusively online. We’ll discuss these considerations and constraints more in class/conference, but be certain to consider how they’ll shape your design.
Whatever your purpose is, you must make careful design decisions drawing from the rhetorical terms we have defined up until this point in the semester and the design principles we will study and practice:
- CRAP Principles: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity
- Color
- Typeface
- Arrangement
- White Space
- Texture
- Verbal Content/Style
We’ll work together to create the grading criteria that will answer the question of what makes a rhetorically effective visual-verbal design piece. When you turn in your final draft, you will also turn in a reflective essay (750-1000 words) that explains your process and analyzes your use of visual and verbal rhetoric. I’ll share a more detailed prompt for the reflection in class.
Final Composition
Writer’s Memo
English 213 