Learning Visual Rhetoric

Visual rhetoric is everywhere in our lives. We see it when we watch advertisements, when we even look at our phones. Text, images, symbols and shapes are all the visual rhetoric that we recognize on a daily basis. It is how we organize it that makes it have any meaning or changes it entirely.


In the lesson this week we learned how different symbols can evoke feelings, lead to misunderstandings and help to emphasize how messages are received. Keeping that subtle subconscious communication in our minds we can become better communicators. We can alter how our stories are perceived based on the imagery we use. Imagery can be used to keep the reader's attention, to keep them engaged in the story we are trying to convey. Imagery is a large part of everyday communication through digital writing.


Understanding however how to make visual rhetoric appealing is a whole other beast. When doing the infographics for our projects I struggled to find the right way to organize information. I wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing yet kept missing the target message. That was until I organized three more times and things fell into place once i understood exactly what I needed to convey. Learning it can be hard, because while we may see visual rhetoric not all of us have experience applying it to an audience. Were there any difficulties you found in doing the same?