Visual Ar guments 18

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1 204 18a visual Createing a Strategy in a Visual Text baseball/mlb/news/2000/01/18/ indians_history_ap/>. Young, Joanne. Lincoln Public Schools. Lincoln Journal Star Feb < Visual Ar guments 18 Readers today may have more experience reading and producing visual arguments thanks to television, video games, computers, and the Internet. Most writers now understand that visual design isn t something added to printed texts just to make them more attractive. Rather, images and words merge to form complex textual relationships that evoke powerful responses. We cannot begin to catalog all the ways we are persuaded visually. You have only to look around to appreciate why. The color and décor of rooms or the architecture of buildings influence those who enter them enough to form a kind of argument. Similarly, every time we select clothing or fashion accessories, we make arguments about ourselves and the groups to which we belong. Even traffic lights are a form of visual persuasion. Still, many more traditional types of verbal texts make their assertions in conjunction with images. (See Figure 18.1.) In this section, we ll consider primarily (though not exclusively) those types of arguments. 18a Creating a Strategy in a Visual Text Whether you are examining a magazine article, an advertisement, or a Web page, pay attention to the way it arranges its material visually. What items are positioned most prominently, and why? How is your eye directed to move across the page? Is there a strategy in the presentation that you can use in your own work? Would a repeated pattern, a specific kind of image, even a border help you convey ideas to your readers? Many design devices are used today to highlight information, from traditional headlines and boxes to pull quotes, sidebars, unusual type fonts, shading, pop-ups, animation, and even aural signals in electronic media. Amid all these options, you might try to establish some consistency in a presentation. For example, you might use similarly sized or shaped headings

2 RuszCh16-19ff.qxd 5/24/04 3:48 PM Page 205 Createing a Strategy in a Visual Text visual 18a FIGURE 18.1 Owners of SUVs who find this fake traffic citation on their vehicles have been subject to a visual argument combining words that question the environmental impact of SUVs with the visual design of a ticket meant to suggest a violation of societal norms. From < to indicate that blocks of information in a report are at comparable levels of importance or generality. Or you might use colors in a PowerPoint or Keynote report to help viewers understand where they are in the presentation. Even overall page design should be designed (or read) strategically. Why are the home pages of most Web search engines (Excite.com, for example) so thick with information? What are they hoping readers will do when they arrive at the page? Consider also the placement of photographs and graphics on the first pages of newspapers, print and online. How do these visual items shape your perception of the day s events? Needless to say, what s front and center is likely to get the most attention. It s a principle to use in shaping your own visual arguments. 205

3 206 18b convey Understanding How Visual Items Convey Information FIGURE 18.2 This USA Today weather graphic uses color to indicate the range of high temperatures forecast over the United States. (Copyright 2001, USA Today. Reprinted with permission.) 18b Understanding How Visual Items Convey Information There is no better way to convey many kinds of information than through charts, graphs, and tables. These elements translate words and numbers into concepts readers can grasp. USA Today is famous for innovative images, especially its weather maps. (See Figure 18.2.) Numbers can be represented visually to great advantage. You might create a pie chart to explain who is getting how much of what, the slices representing the individual percentages. (See Figure 18.3.) A pie chart would be great for showing what portion of the television viewing audience each of the five major broadcast networks has won. But the pie chart loses its grip when the numbers are too close or too fine. You probably wouldn t want to consult a pie chart to learn the audience share of the 100+ cable TV networks; the slices would be too thin and too similar to convey useful information. Allowance of workplace romances Romances allowed 32% Don t know 6% Allowed, but discouraged 55% Not allowed 7% FIGURE 18.3 This clever variation of the standard round pie chart looks at attitudes toward romance on the job. The chart appeared in USA Today on July 21, (Copyright 2001, USA Today. Reprinted with permission.)

4 Considering the Impact of Visual Texts impact 18c 207 Graphs are useful for showing changes taking place over a period of time (or some other variable). You could use a chart to trace global warming trends or a full week of Dow Jones stock averages. Such a graph would allow you to learn the results for each trading day and still read a trend line as well. The information is both precise and general. Visuals can even be used to bring to life what doesn t yet exist. Consider how architects drawings always accompany proposals for new buildings, stadiums, and public transportation systems. NASA and the military have long relied on detailed and idealized images of future technologies to gain public support for long-term projects such as the International Space Station. Yet these are images that must be read carefully and viewed skeptically because there s an agenda behind them. 18c Considering the Impact of Visual Texts The design of your argument may have an impact on your readers whether you realize it or not. They may be turned off by the textheavy pages on your Web site, or resent the lack of color in a pamphlet you are designing. So you must be careful that your designs will attract their intended audiences. The fact that so many publications have revamped their looks in recent years to include more color and more images probably reflects the impact of the Web even on printed documents. As a writer, you have to decide when the design of a document assists your readers and when it begins to manipulate them. A design manipulates readers when it distracts readers from an appreciation of your ideas on their own merits, prevents them from discovering FIGURE 18.4 This portrait of Pfc. Lori Piestewa on the home page of Indian Country (April 4, 2003) honors a member of the Hopi tribe killed in 2002 during the second Gulf war. By arranging individual words around the image of the smiling soldier, the Web page also makes a simple visual argument this person was not only a soldier, but also a happy member of her family and a representative of the Hopi culture.

5 208 18c impact Considering the Impact of Visual Texts what they need to know, or directs them illegitimately toward choices they would not otherwise make. Consider how the pop-ups and animated graphics on a Web page draw readers attention away from the parts of a site they intended to consult. (We re likely to see even more such distractions in the future.) Or consider how a highly emotional, sentimental, or heavily cropped image may distort a message. Tabloids at a grocery checkout counter provide many examples of manipulative images. Why is a former President kissing that woman? Can that formerly svelte actress really have gained all that tonnage? A design clearly manipulates readers when it presents highly charged images designed to preempt thinking rather than encourage it. And it won t always be easy to decide when an image distorts an issue and when it presents a reality harsh or otherwise that you hadn t previously considered. Do people stare at images of catastrophe because they are concerned or grimly fascinated? Probably a bit of both. You ll use visual texts more subtly when you know the right questions to ask when preparing them. What idea or item should be featured on the page? How can it be highlighted? by position? by color? by design elements? What items should have lesser prominence? How can I visually reinforce the relationships between all the items? What should I foreground? What belongs in the background? Does my overall design create a coherent pattern or convey a consistent message? How does my document help readers to understand it or interact with it? What does it offer for them? What does it ask them to do or provide? How does my document use color or design to interest readers or set a mood? How does it use type fonts? What feelings does the text convey visually? Is my document confusing or puzzling in some way? Does it bring together elements that seem odd or antithetical? Is this an effect I want? How does the printed information in my document interact with visual elements? Do words and pictures clarify and support each other, or do they conflict? You ll find much more detailed suggestions for designing documents in Part 3, Presenting Your Writing.