Context 

During my junior year I took an introductory rhetoric class that focused on the basics of rhetorical theory and the many ways in which rhetorical principles are present in everyday life. The final project for the course was a detailed rhetorical analysis of the online presence of one of Elon's services or organizations. Working in groups, we were to pick one general service that functioned through subsequent organizations or businesses outside of Elon. The organizations had to have some semblance of an online presence through both in the form of webpages and social media. The goal of the project was to compare the online presences of multiple outside sources against Elon's equivalent and provide suggestions as to how to improve Elon's online presence.

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My group and I chose to focus on Elon's student newspaper, The Pendulum, and compare its online presence to that of professional newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post as well as other college-level newspapers across the country. Part of the rhetorical analysis included the creation of visual fact sheets for each newspaper we were examining. 

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Rhetorical Decisions

The most important design elements of the fact sheets was the consistency of the graphics. Using the CRAP (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity) principles, my group and I focused on creating documents that contained the highest level of repetition of elements. The repetition went beyond graphics and into the finer details of proximity of titles to the body text and the alignment of each text block within the larger document. Each fact sheet needed to be a mirror image of each other to ensure that the delivery of the information was helping us achieve our rhetorical purpose. Our purpose most aptly connects to Cicero's concept of docere, or teaching. Additionally, docere is connected to the concept of logos.The rhetorical purpose was to create a document that effectively displayed information and statistics in a way that taught the audience about each newspaper with a special emphasis on the paper's online presence. The design of the fact sheets held a high importance because poorly designed visuals hinder the audience's understanding of the material and damages the ethos of the speaker. Below are samples of two of the fact sheets. For the full version of the visuals, click here.

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Aside from using the CRAP principles to maintain consistency in the layout of the fact sheets, it was also important to consider the contrast of the various color schemes used. In order to keep every aspect of the document focused on each specific newspaper, the color schemes coincide with the colors that are associated with the newspapers. For example, because the New York Times features the color blue on its website, the color blue was used in the fact sheet. Of the colors used, my group and I chose shades that were dark enough to provide a substantial contrast from the white background. The rest of the documents are in black and white both to add to the contrast of the document and to be indicative of a physical newspaper. 

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There were additional design decisions that had less to do with the details of colors and alignment. A large part of the design of the fact sheets comes from the physical layout and arrangement of the information. Using the principle of the hierarchy of information, the information ranges from basic to complex from the top to bottom of the page. The arrangement of the information coincides with the thought process of the audience. A viewer of the fact sheet would want to understand the basic details about the newspaper (its history, goals, and mission) before moving onto the more complex topics like its online presence. 

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Reflection

The challenges of this project lied in the strictness of the consistency. It was often difficult to maintain the high level of consistency across so many different documents. However, because the final product conveyed our message so clearly and strongly aided in the achievement of the overall rhetorical purpose, I learned the importance of creating effective, consistent documents that are also aesthetically pleasing This project showcased my visual rhetoric skills and understanding and how I can utilize those skills to create work that is both functional and attractive.