Philippa Kethro asks what design educators are doing about facilitating student learning about design rhetoric. As graphic designers, my students as I deal with the fact that our field is even more commonly and more explicitly focused on persuasion than most areas of design.

We talk about Leslie Atzmon's point that aesthetics and persuasion are inextricable intertwined. I impress on beginning students that how you say something really -is- what you say. One of my favorite examples is to recite Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" [http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm for anyone unfamiliar with it] which I then summarize as "I'd be glad to wait for you but we're all going to die so let's bump uglies now" and I ask whether anyone thinks I missed any of the logic of Marvel's argument and whether anyone thinks the two versions would get similar responses or that they "mean the same thing" in any manner.

One assignment I gave my seniors this semester and will give my sophomores in spring is to place two or more images (I suggest three) on a field (I suggest a ten inch square if they are undecided) in such a manner that they mean something. The second part of the assignment is to use the same field and the same images (with repositioning, scaling, and rotation of the images the only allowable alteration) to mean something else. In the resultant crit we talk about a range of ways that we determine meaning including iconography and a sort of Peircean logical inference. I challenge them to pretend to be anthropologists from Alpha Centauri who don't have any associations with the "things" on the page but can still determine hierarchies of importance, relationships, and the results Newtonian physics.

Even with typography, we look at form as meaning. Historical or other associations are one obvious reference or allusion that type can make beyond carrying linguistic meaning. Pretending that we are not English speakers or Americans so a large F is no longer the start of some words or a labiodental fricative but is an unstable spiky thing allows us to discuss what might be dubbed typographically onomonopoetic. 

We talk about the meta message of form in the guise of historical style--how does Modernist architecture as a whole function as socialist rhetoric in 1920 and how does the same rhetoric function as the argument for international corporate capitalism in 1960?

I also stress design as rhetoric and form as meaning directly. One of my favorite examples is a ladder: There's this thing near the bottom that is clearly a step. I'm supposed to step on it. Above that is a thing that is clearly a step. Above that another. . . until we get to something that seems just the same as the others except that there is a sticker that says that it is not a step. Manufacturers blame lawyers and a lack of personal responsibility for lawsuits by people who "misuse" their products but who should I believe, my $100 ladder or a thirty-five cent sticker?

Gunnar
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-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design on behalf of latzmon
Sent: Fri 11/28/2008 8:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: design education and design rhetoric?
 
Hi Phillippa. I'm glad you enjoyed the essay.

Although visual rhetoric is not a new topic, I'm hoping to add to the
existing conversation. I contend that the aesthetic material of design is
rhetorical--and not just the obvious tactically persuasive aspects, but also
the shape, feel, substance, and even the smell. I also think the designed
object ought to be more central in contemporary visual scholarship, and I
believe that rhetorical analysis of a design artifact can reveal new
insights about the culture in which the object was designed.

I am just finishing a collection, entitled Visible Culture: Visual Rhetoric
and the Special Eloquence of Design Artifacts, that will be going to press
in January. I'd be happy to send you a table of contents and other
information if you'd like. I am also finishing an essay for Eye magazine on
the topic.

If you don't mind, could you tell me about your work as well?

Thanks.
Leslie Atzmon



Philippa Kethro wrote:
> 
> Thank you, Eduardo Corte-Real, for your link to 'not the one and only
> periodical about design'. I was thrilled to read Leslie Atzmon's  article
> in
> this periodical, 'Forms of persuasion: The Visual Rhetoric of Design
> Artifacts  http://www.iade.pt/designist/pdfs/002_01.pdf.
> 
>  
> 
> I see that Leslie Atzmon is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and
> Design History at Eastern Michigan University in the United States.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Perhaps Leslie, or Richard Buchanan, or other list members can give me an
> indication of what are design educators in their neck of the woods are
> doing
> about facilitating student learning about design rhetoric?  I'm working on
> a
> PhD proposal investigating  this aspect of design pedagogy in higher
> education in South Africa.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks, 
> 
>  
> 
> Philippa
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Philippa Kethro
> 
> Tel +2731 3032637
> 
> Mobile +270761746796