Visual Rhetoric Blog

November 28, 2017 Breadth and Depth Requirement Caroline and I will be working together to create a cartoon about the breadth  and depth humanities requirement. We met today to pool ideas. (These are very rough and unorganized so please excuse the formatting.) Audience: incoming first year students (students that have already submitted their deposit and will be registering for classes soon). Purpose: to explain what the requirement is, how to fulfill the requirement, example registration panhel, what the goal of the requirement is Star of the comic: Gompei the goat. Frame 1/2: Hey, my name is Gompei, welcome to WPI! Background: Seal, him under the Earl Bridge Next frame: There are a few graduation requirements you must fulfill at WPI. Background: MQP! IQP!  Next frame: One of those is the Humanities and Arts requirement, Gompei hold HUA in shiny letters, background: picture of the humanities and arts requirement page with gompei pointing at title Next frame: Gener...

November 26, 2017 Final Infographic Design After taking our classmates comments and suggestions into consideration, we created this final design: We decided to include less words on the road signs to make them easier to read while still making the road with the traveling ambulance the main design. We included most of the information on the signs from our previous designs at the bottom of the infographic, underneath the pictures that depict each step of applying/joining the club. We also changed our overall audience to WPI students who are already interested in applying to be a part of EMS, as our infographic addresses the application process. We also redesigned the cartoon characters on the infographic by including the WPI EMS logo as a part of their design to appeal to ethos, since the logo includes the seal. We also go rid of the double arrow sign at the end of the road as it disrupted the flow and confused the reader. Our group also moved the stop sign to the end of th...

 November 25, 2017 During class today, my group and I received some suggestions about our infographic. Some of them are highlighted below: Our visual of the road conveys how to apply to the club well, but our graphic does not convince pre-health/aspiring EMTs to join WPI EMS as well as we had hoped. We should include more benefits, time commitment of the club, contact information Our road signs were a bit difficult to read Starting at the stop sign is discouraging We had originally decided to use the stop sign as a "stop, you need to be certified before you can apply to be a part of the club", but since it does have a universal meaning of stopping altogether completely, the graphic could be used at the end of the road rather than the beginning to signal an end to the application process The title section could use work as it currently resembles the FBI warning logo at the beginning of videos. Some recommendations the class made: Scoot the whole graphic up...

November 17, 2017 Revising our Vision My infographic group met again today to discuss further changes that we wanted to make to our draft. During class, we realized that we did not have a strong audience that we were trying to target with our infographic. After some reflection and interviewing members of WPI EMT, we have decide to target pre-med majors at WPI as well as students who hope to become EMTs after graduation, since EMS experience gives you training to become an EMT. We decided to title our infographic "Road to WPI EMS" as we will be highlighting the steps that need to be taken to be a member of WPI EMS. Our central image will still be the ambulance but it will also include a winding road that it will be traveling on. Road signs will accompany the road to give direction to how to apply and join WPI EMS. We are still planning to include medical equipment in the final infographic. Here is our second draft: We used the signs on the road for the reader to ...

November 15, 2017 First Draft Since EMS does not have an official club symbol, we decided to use an ambulance as the central picture to our infographic story. In high school, I used a word grouping program that tracked the frequency of the appearance of words and organized them into a set picture. We decided to use a similar program to group important words we found on the EMS website into the shape of an ambulance. Our original idea was to depict an ambulance traveling along a road to the hospital with puffs of white and grey smoke trailing behind. EMS refers to it's members as dark smoke and white smoke - the dark smoke being those that happen to receive a lot of calls and the white smoke those that rarely receive calls. After trying to create a few rough drafts, we decided to try a new approach. We were able to speak to a few members of WPI's EMS to gather some general information and their opinions about the club. They were super friendly and so willing to he...

November 14, 2017 Infographic For my next visual rhetoric project, I will be working with  Natasha  and  Caroline  to create an infographic about a WPI club or organization. An infographic should: Use pictures, colors, and fonts to tell a story Include statistics, only if relevant and contribute to the overall information and story that is trying to be convey Include a central image to tell the story NOT be a bunch of semi-related pictures that appears to give information in a way to catch someone's eye but does not have a solid central theme To begin our design process, we googled infographics for inspiration. Source:  https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/infographic-template-design_1130959.htm Source:  https://www.pinterest.com/tiffsburger/burger-infographics/?lp=true Source: http://thefinishedbox.com/inspiration/web-interfaces/10-fantastic-money-and-finance-infographic-designs/ Source:  http://mrsnovotnyart.weebly.com/alter...

November 12, 2017 The Rune Font Caroline and I decided to work together to hand-draw our font and scan it onto Adobe Illustrator. Neither of us had used the program before, so it was a bit difficult to navigate. We were inspired by the runes pictures we had Googled earlier. They reminded us of engraved cave drawings and trail signs. From: https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/5879/wood-versus-plastic-trail-signs Hand drawing We then scanned this font onto Adobe Illustrator to enhance some of the picture and improve the design. This is the logo that was provided to us by the client. Upon looking at it, we saw a yeti emerging from a frozen cave outlined by ice or jagged rocks. The straight lines that compose our letters reflect the jagged ca ve the yeti is emerging from. The arms of some of the straighter letters, such as "H" and "Z" have bent lines composing them, signifying the mountain that the adventurers will be on and that the yeti lives...

November 10, 2017 Revenge of the Yeti - Collaborative Font A client representative came to our lecture yesterday to answer questions about our fonts and the escape room. Some information we were given included: The name of the escape room will be "Revenge of the Yeti" The font will only be used as a title font, not as more traditional paragraph font or on clue cards. The escape room is made of two segments: first you must find the lost expedition, then you must escape the Yeti. If you can't escape the Yeti, then you are killed The keywords Sherpa and Himalaya were more just for brainstorming purposes, the room will not have a strong tie to the Himalayas, just to cold mountains. The Sherpas will be the mountain guides who help you through the Escape Room. The font will be a cold color, such as blue or purple Some scenery will include a bunker where you escape into, older radios, and cloth tents. The font must be able to be used on flyers, next to the escape...

November 8, 2017 Font Design Overall theme: disaster, menacing, caution, trip gone wrong For font design inspirations, I began by searching for images related to some of the key words from my previous blog post. Disney's Expedition Everest : Source:  http://www.wdwlive.com/picture/animal-kingdom/asia/expedition-everest-2085-9.html Source:  http://www.onlywdworld.com/2012/02/disney-world-rides-expedition-everest.html Snow/cold/glacier fonts : Source: http://www.picturetopeople.org/text_generator/others/ice/frozen-text-logo-generator.html Source:  http://www.fontspace.com/aarrgghh/ice-and-snow Nepali written language : Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepali_language#/media/File:Nepali_Language.gif Conclusions/Further Ideas: Serif font with letters that come to points at the end to give them a glacial quality Letters should be curved, not block letters "Escape" and "Yeti Expedition" should have more spacing between letters th...

November 7, 2017 Fonts and their influences are everywhere. Like breathing, reading has almost become an instinct. There are words everywhere - from road signs, to social media, to the nutrition facts on a Crispix Cereal box. When I am presented with something with words on them, I read it. With those words comes their fonts. As reading has become an instinct, I have never considered how the fonts the words are written in influence my understanding and perception of a sign, a video game, or a book. Fonts can: Influence how we perceive and interpret any work, from books to signs. Help the author or artistic producer portray a theme. The final version of my font will communicate the theme of the escape room to the reader. Escape from the Yeti Expedition Font Assignment: to design a font for an Escape from the Yeti Expedition escape room. The Yeti (The Abominable Snowman) Honestly, I have never watched a scary movie. Halloween is not my favorite holiday. I hate be...