Context

During my junior year, I took a special topics in rhetoric class that focused on the relationship between rhetoric and civic action. Through a series of interactive, historical simulations we learned how to incorporate key rhetorical elements into community advocacy. The class' final project was to choose an civic issue we were interested in and create accompanying documents that would further our hypothetical civic action and engagement on our chosen issue.

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I chose to focus on the issue of animal testing and created two different documents that were geared towards two different audiences. The first is an animal testing handout that is intended for those who are already involved with animal testing/cruelty advocacy and the second is a brochure intended for those who may not be as familiar with the details of animal testing and are looking for more information on the issue or how to become involved in advocacy. I chose to create a brochure and a handout to showcase my visual design skills and that my rhetorical skills extend far past written content alone.

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Handout Rhetorical Decisions 

The most important aspects of creating this handout were the content itself and how the content was organized on the page. In creating the written content, it was imperative to fully understand who my audience was. Though I knew I wanted to write for those who were already informed about animal testing, I had to imagine what kinds of information would this audience find interesting or worth reading without reiterating what they may already know. The purpose of the written component of the handout was to illuminate current headway in animal testing alternatives and ways of raising awareness/engagement in local communities. Likewise, I connected the audience to a smaller, local organization working to end animal testing in hopes of inspiring the audience to start civic engagement projects of their own that are independent of the major organizations fighting this issue.

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In formatting the visual and design aspect of the handout, I used my visual rhetoric skills and principles to make informed decisions about how to effectively design the document. Specifically, I heavily relied on the CRAP (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity) principles to create an attractive and rhetorically successful handout. Below are images of the handout. To view the full size handout, click here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In creating the format of the handout, I made sure there was adequate contrast in my choice of color scheme. The high contrast allows the handout to be eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing. Likewise, I made sure that the alignment of both my text and pictures were placed in a way that maximized the available space. The proximity of the content is also important when looking at the negative space on the page. I wanted the handout to be arranged in a way that felt intentionally designed with purposeful negative space. Too much or too little negative space would've been detrimental to the handout achieving its rhetorical purpose. The repetition of both the shapes and text placement adds to the works to balance the handout in rhetorically effective way. The design of the handout is extremely important because creating a poorly designed visual would have been damaging to my ethos and would have questioned my dedication to the issue.

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Brochure Rhetorical Decisions

Likewise to the handout, I created the brochure with the intention to blend the textual content and visual design. When writing the brochure's content, it was extremely important to me that I created a piece that was persuasive in its information and not its scare tactics. I did not want to rely on a rhetoric that overused pathos to scare its audience through graphic and violent images. Though it may be an effective means of persuasion, I wanted to create something that was filled with clean and simple information that is appropriate for all audiences.

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Because my intended audience for the brochure was those who many not be familiar with the details and prevalence of animal testing, I made sure to include all of the basics. I formatted the information in a way that is akin to the thought process/frequently asked questions by my audience to better organize my information based on the hierarchy of information. The purpose of the document was to persuade my audience to become more informed about the issue and diligent about the products and companies they support. My main method of persuasion came from an appeal to logos. I included accurate information and statistics from reputable sources and organizations. I also used subtle appeals to pathos through non-graphic images that were meant to evoke emotions connected to the audience's potential pets and animals.

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When designing the brochure, I again went back to the CRAP principles to ensure that the final product looked clean and professional. Below are images of the brochure. To view the full size brochure, click here.

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I intentionally used the same high-contrast color scheme for both the handout and brochure to solidify that the two were part of a set and surrounded the same topic. Much like the handout, I focused on the proximity and alignment of the text and words. However, the brochure was slightly more difficult to design because of the larger quantity of information coupled with the stylistic challenges that come with a trifold brochure over a full-page handout. Because of this, I put a special emphasis on the uniformity and repetition of design aspects like icons, bullet points, and picture sizing and placement. The consistency of the design speaks to my visual rhetoric skills and, like the handout, producing a visual that contains a sub-par design element is damaging to my ethos as a speaker.

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Reflection

While this class was a great educational experience and look into the connections between rhetoric and civic action, the final project was an especially profound learning experience. One of my major takeaways was how to format similar types of information for different audiences. When the audience changes so does the message and overall rhetorical purpose of a document. Likewise, because my documents were so visually important, the project was a great lesson in the details of visual rhetoric.