The Rhetorical Genre in Graphic Design: Its Relationship to Design Authorship and Implications to Design Education

Towards a Definition of the Rhetorical Genre in Graphic Design, Design Authorship, and Its Implications to Design Education Rhetoric and Graphic Design The relationship between graphic design and rhetoric has been an elusive one. The two disciplines have evolved in very distinct periods in time--one has an established track dating back to the ancient Greeks, the other is a child of the industrial revolution and the ensuing fragmentation between production and planning processes. However, when comparing statements of purposes, they may sometimes sound quite alike. Corbett & Connors (1999) define rhetoric as the art or the discipline that deals with the use of discourse ... to inform, persuade or motivate an audience (p. 1). According to Resnick (2003), A more contemporary definition of graphic design might include the 'art' of communication--to inform, educate, influence, persuade, and provide a visual experience (p. 15). In introduction of his classic rhetorical treaty Campbell (1888) states, All the ends of speaking are reducible to four; every speech being intended to enlighten the understanding, to please the imagination, to move the passions, or to influence the will (p.1) When trying to explain graphic design's motives, Rand (1993) cautions his readers design broadens perception, magnifies experience, and enhances vision. It is also an instrument of disorder and confusion. Design for deception is often more persuasive than design for good; seduction is one of its many masks (p. 3). From its beginnings in Antiquity, classical rhetoric was expanded from a discipline pertaining solely to the art of speaking to include the art of writing once printing became widespread during the Renaissance. Similarly, in the age of mass media, the art of combining words and images into arguments represents one further step in the evolution of human communications. In the past century, several design theorists have pursued the relationship between rhetoric and visual communication. We see some early attempts of a synthesis between rhetoric and semiotics as a path to a graphic design theory at the HfG Ulm during the 60s, particularly with the writings of Bonsiepe (1999). Later in the 80s, we find Ehses (1989) undertaking in systematizing some of these ideas into a teaching methodology. More recently, numerous calls for the reinsertion of rhetoric as a bridge between graphic design theory and practice have been proposed by Boekraad (2000), Kinross (2002), Poggenpohl (1998), Triggs (1995), and Wild (1993), among others. Early accounts of the use of rhetorical principles in graphic design have concentrated mainly in the use of figures of speech in advertising (Bonsiepe, 1999) and poster design (Ehses1989). This focus falls within the realm of elocution, or the articulation of the style of the message. Although elocution is only one step of the rhetorical process, the overlapping between verbal and visual tropes such as metaphors, metonymies, puns, etc. presented a common ground for the exploration of the shared possibilities between the two areas. Because of its openly persuasive purpose, the entry point for studies in visual rhetoric has been advertising. However, as Kinross (1985) suggests, the distinction between design for information and design for persuasion is not as clearcut as it is often assumed, and the rhetorical component may also pervade so called objective information such as a train timetable. Wood (1992) makes a similar case by revealing how ideological interests are filtered into the apparent factuality of geographical maps. One common point in the writings advocating the role of rhetoric in graphic design is the acknowledgment of the impossibility of neutral discourse, of discourse devoid of values. There is no such a thing as pure information; every communication, verbal or visual, is always tainted by an agenda. …