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Gardner-Webb University’s English department is one of a kind. I mean, what other departments would let 6 of their students design the department t-shirt for the next few years? 

If you’ve read my previous blog posts, you will remember that I am in a visual rhetoric class. Throughout this semester, we have designed various masterpieces from book cover designs to fancy typography. For our final design task, we had to design two t-shirt designs for the English department. These designs will then be taken to the faculty to vote on the winner. My partner for this, Thomas, was a dream. Our noggins work excellently together, allowing us to bounce ideas off of each other to create two wonderful, abstract designs that we are both proud of. 

Before you scroll down to admire our magnificent designs, note that each design could have the possibility of having the English department logo on the left side of the front of the shirt where a pocket can be typically found. We have provided these logos on the correct color t-shirt, but they will not be that size by any means. 

Now to our designs: 

First up, we have: 

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For this design, we kept to the task described by our professor to make it look “Englishy” but also like Gardner-Webb. To fulfill the “Englishy” aspect of that task, we chose a book with glasses. To us, this represents English very stereotypically. We know it’s basic for a book and glasses to represent English, but we wanted people to immediately acknowledge who we are representing. The glasses serve another purpose, they show our “nerdiness” while also showing our desire to look further than the bare eye can see. With the glasses, everything is focused. Also, in English studies, the term “lens” is often used to describe the way you are looking at something. The reason there is a globe in the first lens is that through the various courses a student can take at both the undergraduate and graduate level challenge students to see the world in a different light, or lens. Through reading and writing, we are able to take on the emotions and perspectives of various characters from various backgrounds, ethnicities, and challenges. This is a unique skill English students have that we wanted to showcase. In the lens on the right, you will find the symbol for empathy. By seeing other perspectives through reading and writing, students are also able to feel empathy at a stronger and more unique degree. Empathy is something that is not easily taught, but students are able to gradually hone in one this skill through these classes. Finally, to honor the Gardner-Webb aspect of the task, the shirt literally says “GWU English Department.” We are the authors of our own stories, and this is what is magnified through the texts read, analyzed, and written, but also through the wonderful examples the English professors have set for us. 

The color of the shirt is the Gardner-Webb prescribed version of red (A712D1). The outline is white because we wanted it to pop the most. The words are the blue (151B48) found on Gardner-Webb’s branding guidelines as a complementary color. The words are in the font “Oswald” because it is a sans-serif typeface, making it easier to read and faster to comprehend. 

Something our professor wanted us to be aware of when creating these designs is that we may only be able to print them in one color. For this design, our one color would be white. The only that that would be changed is that the globe would be transparent, outlined in white, and the contents filled in with white. Besides that, everything would stay the same. We also intentionally made our blogs more abstract to where with one color, it is still obvious what we are trying to say, without saying it or needing another color. 

And now, if you will please go over to my partner’s blog https://thevisuallyrhetoricalthomasmanning.wordpress.com to see our other design and his description of why we did what we did. 

Love and blessings,

Samantha Belle

Works Cited

“Bifocals, book, eyeglasses, glasses, specs, spectacles icon.” Iconfinder. https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/397935/bifocals_book_eyeglasses_glasses_specs_spectacles_icon

“Care, courtesy, empathy, heart, kindness icon.” IconFinder. https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1991684/care_courtesy_empathy_heart_kindness_icon

Gardner-Webb University Branding Guidelines. https://blackboard.gardner-webb.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-1796066-dt-content-rid-4130145_1/courses/201920_ENGL_425_C_20086/201920_ENGL_625_O_20146_ImportedContent_20191218061206/brand-guidelines.pdf

“Oprah GIF.” GIPHY. https://media.giphy.com/media/COYggJB0KnADm/giphy.gif

“3d earth map with shadow on transparent background vector image.” VectorShock. https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/3d-earth-map-with-shadow-on-transparent-background-vector-22510516

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designers Design & Type Books: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Peachpit Press, 2008.

There’s a lot that can be said in a word, right? I mean, in a word, you have letters that “come together” to build a word that has a definition. But, as I have learned this week in my visual rhetoric class, there is so much more to the world of words, and in today’s world words begin with typefaces. 

As our readings of The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams came to a close, we looked in depth at one more element of design: type. I have grown up in a technology-centric world were Microsoft Word and its pre-downloaded fonts were all I ever knew, until this class (we don’t even use the term “fonts” anymore, we say “typefaces”). There is so much that needs to be said (literally), so it’s important to know exactly how to do it, which is what we’ve been learning all about. 

I would love to teach you some of the interesting facts about type that I have learned, so I will first show you the design I created for this week’s challenge. Below, you will find the word I created on Gimp and how I designed it to illuminate the definition of the word while also provoking a certain pathos from the audience. 

Here is my chosen word: 

This design was a long-time coming. The first idea I had, and the only one that stuck, was having the boy symbol representing the word “boy” and jumping. For this unique choice of symbol + word I used the concept of visual metonymy, which is when our brains cognitively associate the symbol with the word, so the picture of the boy is cognitively associated with the word “boy.” But what was I going to do with the other 7 letters? This is where I struggled. At first, I had all intentions to do something with 3D letters, but, after watching 4 different videos online and getting REALLY frustrated, I gave up and started pondering other ideas. 

My route of thinking consisted of me knowing I wanted to have the letters be “bold” in some way, but not by using just the bold font style. This led me to ponder the idea of outlining the letters. By outlining the letters I could show the boldness of the meaning of “flamboyant,” but not too seriously since it is a fun word after all. To contrast with the seriousness of the bold outlines, I decided to use fun, bright colors, to show the other part of the “flamboyant” definition. Finally, I was able to visualize aligning the words at a curve and not a straight line to provide some diversity and uniqueness. 

I have reinserted my design here to provide an easy reference as I go into the final details of my design process: 

To begin with, the background is set as navy blue to provide a different color background than black (since that is the color of the outlines of the letters), but that still creates a dark base to contrast the word off of. I then had to decide on a typeface. I chose “Lora Bold Italic” because I fell in love with it when I first saw it in class and I liked what I could make it represent. Similar to my reasoning above the desire to show the serious or confident aspect of the definition while also showing the fun and eccentric side, I wanted the same for my typeface. Lora is a Slab Serif font, meaning the letters have “feet” to them (this whole post is written in Lora so you can use these letters for reference). This type of font is a modern font used at first for advertising and children’s books. This was because it has a straightforward look that is thick and distinguishable. By making the font in bold and italics there was the emphasis on “thickness” as well as a fun element with the end of the letters curving out more than being straight feet. I continued this notion of it being serious but not “too” serious by starting the word with a lower case “f.” By doing this, the word felt less formal and more freeing.

Once the letters were created and the boy cut out, I was able to start laying them out. I tried to use the practices of kerning, adjusting the space between characters, to have each letter equally spread out from each other to create an easy, readable flow that would show the curve but not be too distracting for the reader. This was able to connect with the boy with the rest of the word as well. The “t” is closer to the side of the image than the “f” to show movement off of the page, especially since the boy is jumping in the direction as well. The colors chosen were intentionally very bright to show the brightness of the word and anyone who is “flamboyant,” which is another reason the boy is jumping, to show he is “flamboyant” too. 

I hope you feel happy when looking at this word and that it makes you want to get up and jump because I sure do after creating it!

With love,

Samantha Belle

Works Cited

“Flamboyant: Definition of Flamboyant by Lexico.” Lexico Dictionaries | English, Lexico Dictionaries, http://www.lexico.com/en/definition/flamboyant.

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designers Design & Type Books: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Peachpit Press, 2008.

If you’ve seen the wonderful movie, Lilo & Stitch, then you know that the above picture is one of the saddest parts of any Disney movie. Stitch finds the book The Ugly Duckling, realizing he is like the ugly duckling (cue the waterworks). The reason I am reminding you of this sadness is that for my next visual rhetoric project I decided to be like Stitch and read the story, The Ugly Duckling. 

This week’s project challenged us to recreate three scenes from a fable/fairy tale through shapes and colors. This exercise comes from the phenomenal book Picture This! How Pictures Work by Molly Bang. In this book, Bang reimagines the story The Little Red Riding Hood through shapes and colors, teaching the reader different shapes and color principles. Using what I have learned from her book and from Robin Williams’ book The Non-Designer’s Design Book, I tried to design three important scenes from Hans Christian Andersen’s Ugly Duckling tale. 

The first scene I recreated was when the Ugly Duckling first hatches. After hatching, he is immediately labeled as ugly and different from his siblings. Here is my first design: 

First, a little explanation of who is who and why they are the way they are might be helpful. The light brown, rounded triangle is the Ugly Duckling, hatching from his brown egg. He is light brown because he is different than his yellow siblings (the yellow triangles) and brown is not that attractive of a color. Also, brown is considered a warm color so he “pops” on the green background (the grass). He is a rounded triangle shape and larger than his siblings because I wanted to show that he is different but similar to his siblings. His siblings are intentionally pointy triangles because they are mean to the Ugly Duckling, so they do not deserve to be rounded and approachable, as Bang would say. This is opposite from both the Ugly Duckling and the Mama Duck (the light purple oval) because they are supposed to be huggable and provoke sympathy. Mama Duck is light purple because that is a nice, cool color that falls into the background to bring more focus on the other ducks. The Mama Duck and the siblings are to the left of the Ugly Duckling and in the same panel to show proximity by grouping them together. The purpose of the siblings and the Mama Duck being distant from him is to show their common uneasiness with his appearance. 

The second scene is of the Ugly Duckling flying away from his family in the pouring rain. He does this because of how lonely he feels with everyone making fun of him and calling him a mistake and not a real duck. Here is my second design: 

The color and shape of the Ugly Duckling are repeated (even though the brown looks different with the dark blue background, I promise it’s the same) to show consistency. He is the only character in this scene to show how alone is felt and provoke sympathy. His head (the tip of the triangle) is tipped downward to represent him sadly and shamefully dropping his head. The sky is now a dark blue to show that is now a darker point in the story, and the same goes for the dark green color of the ground. There is now a river going through the ground to emphasize that the Ugly Duckling is flying through the sky. There are raindrops and dark clouds to represent the storm he is flying through and feeling on the inside. He is intentionally seen heading toward the other side of the river because he is trying to get to a better life where he’s accepted. 

The last scene is of the Ugly Duckling a year later, now as a beautiful swan flying away from his family towards his newly found family of other swans who accept him for who he is. Here is my last design: 

The shape of the Ugly Duckling is repeated to show consistency, but he is now white. This is because he is now a beautiful, perfect, white swan. He matches the other three swans in the sky who are represented with circles because they are welcoming to the Ugly Duckling. The Ugly Duckling can be seen flying away from his family because his head is in the direction of the swans who are smaller and seem farther away. There is the repetition of the Mama Duck and the siblings because they are still watching but with awe rather than disgust. This scene shows how the story goes full circle by having a lot of the same elements as the first scene but subtle, important differences that can be easily seen. 

Even though this project was difficult and completely out of my comfort zone, I have truly enjoyed it. This is such an important story and I am glad I could retell it in this way. Remember, even though someone is different than you, it does not make them inferior. 

Works Cited 

Bang, Molly. Picture This! How Pictures Work. Chronicle Books, 2016. 

Wiffles. Stitch and The Ugly Duckling. WaffleGifs. 

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designers Design & Type Books: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Peachpit Press, 2008.

Hellooo fellow Asgardians! I sincerely thank you for visiting my blog today, for I have important information that you must hear. Have you ever heard of the Great Loki of Asgard? If not, that is a disgrace and you must die. Okay, just kidding. But seriously, the beautiful man making an appearance at the beginning of this blog, that’s Loki and man could he be of great service to you. 

Below, I have Loki’s business cards. Please, take a look and feel free to call him because Avengers: Age of Ultron never happened. 

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You may be asking yourself why I decided to create business cards for this devious character. Well, besides the fact that he’s amazing, it is for a school project. In class this past week, we have continued our discussion of CRAP (Contrast Repetition Alignment Proximity) with our new knowledge of color! 

“Color” is such a simple word with a lot of weight. 

There is so much more to know about color that is beyond primary colors and that there are 7 different colors in the rainbow. In Robin Williams’ design book, The Non-Designer’s Design Book (4th edition), I learned various new terms and design principles that deal with color; such as triad, analogous, CMYK, and RGB. 

Our task for this week was to create a set of 3 business cards for a fictional character. Each business card was to keep the same design but have different color schemes. Before I get into the details of my color choices, I will give you a brief explanation for my design choices. First of all, and most importantly, this design would not have been possible without the brilliant work of the one and only, Sophie Simmons (my best friend’s sister). She is a giant marvel fan and genius artist, who so willingly allowed for me to use this Loki helmet she designed. 

It pained me that I chose to put only the right half of the helmet on my card, but I really liked the look of it. This design element makes the card look more open and not as compact. This was one of the reasons the business cards are vertical. The other reason being that I thought the card would feel more “Loki” if the viewer could see all of the horn since that is a staple of his attire. The words chosen explain Loki to a “t” and the quote is from the first Avengers movie, where Lokie makes his first appearance. The helmet serves as a frame for the words as both of the first letters of “Asgardians” and “Call” touch the edge of the helmet. The curve of the words was also created by rotating “flushed left,” “flushed right,” and “center” between the groups of words. 

The second color scheme I chose is a part of a triad color scheme. Again, I chose the green from the helmet to be the hue that the other colors are based on. A “triad” is a set of 3 colors that are in equal distance from each other on the color wheel. In this case, much to my enjoyment, one of the colors is the nice tan color set as the background. This made me happy because tan is an interesting color to use as a background besides white and black. The maroon color chosen for the accent words also comes from the triad, just on the opposite side. This was a similar mindset as the card before, where there was a lighter background, so the darker words, even though maroon is a “cool” color, it still “pops!”

The third and last card, and personally my favorite, is a split complementary color scheme, or “compound” as it is said on Adobe Color. This means that the colors used are the ones right beside the complement (direct opposite) of the hue (again, the green from the helmet). This one is my favorite because it is not a color scheme I anticipated I would use. I chose the dark maroon background first because the other two cards have light backgrounds. Then I found that the blue worked really well for the accent words. Lastly, rather than keeping the other, non-accent words as white, I chose to make them black. This provided a great contrast that I didn’t know I needed. 

Well, I don’t want to bore you anymore with the little details of why I chose to do what I did, but do know that I had a BLAST while doing it. Also, it totally put me in the mood to go watch every scene of every movie that Loki is in and impatiently wait for his new Disney + tv show. 

Thank you and good night. 

Samantha Belle 

Works Cited 

“Adobe Color Wheel.” Adobe, https://color.adobe.com/create

SOPHIE SIMMONS

“Tom Hiddleston Smile GIF.” GIFY, https://giphy.com/gifs/reaction-8PsbM0OpqPl9OClfSw

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designers Design & Type Books: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Peachpit Press, 2008.

Let’s be honest here, everyone judges a book by its cover. This is an innate action of ours that we cannot seem to control, which is why the people who meticulously design book covers spend so much time making it what they think the readers would like to see. 

Have you ever looked at a book cover and wondered what the symbol represented on the front? What the purpose is of having such a simple cover? Or a busy one? 

These are all honest questions you may have found yourself asking in your local book store, and they are all completely valid and something to be thought through. In this week’s classes, my classmates and I got a little glimpse into the world of book cover design, and man is there a lot to it. 

For this week’s design exercise, we were supposed to use the principles of design we have learned thus far and what we learned this week about repetition and contrast to create a book cover of our very own. To make this task trickier for us, the book cover we are designing is based on a real book, but one we have not read or seen before. We were supposed to listen to a 1-2 synopsis of a book and then create the cover from what we learned without looking up the current design of the book. 

My friend told me about a book titled The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, a collection of 16 short stories about four mother-daughter relationships. They are all living in America, but the mothers are immigrants from China, and their daughters are Chinese-Americans. These short stories follow the daughters during their childhood and the conflicts that arise for them as they try to be who they want to be in America in contrast with their Chinese heritage. These stories also follow the daughters into their adulthood and how their complicated relationships with their mothers impacted their lives now. 

With this small synopsis being all I had to go off of, this is the book cover I created: 

To break it down, let’s go layer by layer. The first layer would be the one in the very back, the black cover. I chose black as the base color because I knew I wanted to use bright colors in the picture and text, so the background color that would provide the best contrast is black. The black allows for the yellows and pinks to “pop” as well as allow the twigs of the tree to be seen clearly by the reader. 

The next layer to look at is the tree limbs with flowers on them. The two particular flowers on these stems are plum blossoms and white roses. These were my immediate thoughts when I heard the description of this book. The plum blossom is China’s national flower and the white rose is the national flower of America. I chose to use these flowers for this cover because of what they can subtly symbolize. The plum blossoms represent the mothers who are from China while the white roses represent the daughters. There are four white roses to represent each daughter who are near their mothers. The white roses are like little buds because the book follows their childhood through their “bloom” into adulthood. 

The title “The Joy Luck Club” is placed on the top right corner and flushed left to provide a nice white space in the left-hand corner. I like this because there is nothing directly above the end of the twig, making it seem like the twig is still moving up. Also, the title only spans out over two out of the three columns of the cover rather than all three. This is in contrast with the tree limb that spans all three columns. 

There is also a contrast in the different sizes of different typefaces: “The Joy Luck Club” is 300px (pixels), “Amy Tan” is 150px, and the made-up quote from The New York Times is 50px. I purposely picked these dimensions to be proportional to each other. There is repetition with the colors used as they are each derived from the plum blossoms. The pink in “Amy Tan” is taken from the darker pink sides of the flowers, and the yellow in the other words are taken from the middle of the flowers. These colors are purposefully repetitive to show connections within all of the elements of the cover. This helped with the alignment of the cover as well because the eyes are immediately drawn to the title, then the picture, “Amy Tan,” and finally the quote from The New York Times (the least important aspect of the cover). 

Now that I have thoroughly described my book cover, I hope you have enjoyed getting to learn a little bit more about design and the tedious process of creating a book cover. In case you would like to play with creating your own, it might be nice to know that I used the software Gimp, which is an opensource software that can be downloaded online. 

Remember that even though people spend a lot of time designing book covers, sometimes we just don’t like the cover, and that is OK because what truly matters is the words on the inside. As Sam from ICarly so brilliantly says, 

There’s a whole other world within the realm of books, so get to reading folks! 

Samantha Belle 

Works Cited 

“Book Read Gif.” Gify, giphy.com/gifs/books-reading-my-brilliance-il1yesdofGlZ6.

“Plum Blossom.” National Flower of the Republic of China, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Flower_of_the_Republic_of_China.

“White Rose.” Pixabey, www.pexels.com/photo/white-rose-160916/.

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designers Design & Type Books: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Peachpit Press, 2008.

After another week of trials (impeachment) and stress-induced headaches (Harry and Meghan probably have one), I have once-again learned something new in my Visual Rhetoric class. This week I have learned how to align with a purpose.

As was prescribed in my assignment for this week, I have created a fictional app that would be beneficial to GWU’s campus life. We were supposed to create three wireframes for this app. What are wireframes, you may ask? They are the skeleton behind the layout of the app’s pages. 

Before I show you my wireframes, I’m going to tell you a little bit about the premise of my idea. My app is a singular place for GWU students to find information about different academic support opportunities around campus. It will also be a place for students to quickly make appointments with these services as well. Students can currently make appointments on WebbConnect, our school’s server, but this would be a more accessible tool for students to use. 

I have a direct interest in this app concept because I am currently a Writing Center consultant. Over my 1 ½ years of working this job, there have been multiple instances where students have made appointments with me, thinking it is for different academic support services like Peer Tutoring. This app is meant to delete this confusion by allowing easy access for students to look at descriptions for each of the services, the times they are open, who’s working there, etc. 

I think that is enough backstory for now, so if you will please keep scrolling, you will FINALLY see the wireframes I created. (P.S. I am under strict policy to not apologize for things I can’t fix, but I just want to warn you that the pictures may seem a little fuzzy. If they do, blame Gliffy) 

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TA-DA! Welcome to an inside look into my new app, GWU: Ignite Your Intelligence. Now for a little explanation for each wireframe so you know why I made the choices I did:

The first wireframe is the lovely homepage. If you’re wondering, even though it has nothing to do with alignment, the color scheme is red, black, and light gray because…GO BULLDOGS. Anyways, let’s start at the top of the screen (not counting the AT&T, battery power, etc. bar). The app title is written within the black, curved shape that is in the center of the top third of the screen. I chose to place it there because it has obvious emphasis, making it clear that it is the title. There is a movement within the shape that helps make the app seem “bigger” than it is. Also, there is a direct path of eyesight movement down to the light gray boxes that consist of the different academic support services. 

Each rectangle is about half of the screen, but it is moved up from touching the bottom of the screen to show that the rectangles can be moved. What I mean by “moved” is that the student can swipe left to get to the next service. I thought this would provide a nice movement on the page. Also, the light gray boxes are buttons. The rectangles are basic so they can be easily read. The icons of the book and the pencil and paper are larger than the words, but not by too much. However, the icons and “Explore” are centered while the words “Peer Tutoring” and “Writing Center” are flushed left. This is because I wanted to provide an interesting contrast with the titles of the services from the other elements on the rectangles. 

The second wireframe shows what the screen would look like if the student was to click on the “Writing Center” button. This screen is blockier than the homepage because there is a lot to choose from. The buttons are boxes because that is simple and there is an obvious contrast with the different choices a student could make. All of the words are centered because it made for a “clean” look, which I enjoyed. At the bottom of the screen are three little icons: the one on the left is a back arrow, the one in the middle is the “home” button, and the one on the right is the “make an appointment” button that is signified by a clock (because I couldn’t find anything better). I thought this would be a nice option because, at any point, the student can make an appointment with one of the services. All of the icons are aligned and the far-left and far-right ones are aligned with the “W” and the last “r” in the “Writing Center.” This provides the barrier that everything is within. 

The third and last wireframe shows what the screen would look like if the student was to click on the button “About Us.” The “About Us” is centered because it is the title, but it also starts the reading path. As the student views this screen, they can read from “About Us” and then follow down to read the different headings in black. The “Bios” section is intentionally different because I wanted to provide another way the students can actively scroll on the screen and did not have to click on another button. The boxes are centered to show that the student must scroll down to continue reading the bios of the glorious writing center consultants. The words in the bio boxes, however, are flushed left and even with the first letter of the consultant’s name. Lastly, the icons appear at the bottom of the screen again for the same purpose. 

Well, that’s it, folks, for this week anyway. I hope you will leave this blog post with a new sense of what it means to be “aligned,” or at least how to align a poster, social media post, etc. to where it is intentional and effective. 

Lots of love,

Samantha Belle

Works Cited

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designers Design & Type Books: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Peachpit Press, 2008.

Hear ye! Hear ye! I call all eligible voters to please do their civic duty and vote this upcoming election, and then come to this made-up watch party that should totally be a thing.

This week in my Visual Rhetoric class, we have been discussing one of the basic principles of design, proximity. A simplified definition of this term is “items relating to each other should be grouped together” (Williams 13). Basically, this means that when alike items are grouped together, it is easier for a reader to grab ahold of what you are trying to say. Plus, proximity makes the ad, poster, flyer, brochure, etc. easier on the eyes, which is always important.

To test our knowledge of this concept, my classmates and I were assigned a project. This project consisted of us designing our own social media ad using the principle of proximity for an upcoming (make-believe) event of our creation that was influenced by a passion of ours. Well, if it wasn’t obvious in my ad, I have a passion for politics. When trying to decipher what event I wanted to promote, it was easy to think about the election because of course, that is all we hear about nowadays.

I chose to promote an election party over just voting because I wanted to have a specific event to promote. When I began designing my ad I had a few specifics in mind; I wanted the colors red, white, and blue, and I wanted it to be simple but sophisticated.

When first looking at this ad, your eyes should look immediately at the white box that contains the words “Election 2020 Watch Party.” If they do, then I did my job right. This group of words is restrained within the barriers of that white box because they create my “title” or what the event is. The white box “pops” from the dark-colored background, emphasizing its importance and its desire to be seen first.

Next, the goal was for your eyes to read the word “VOTE.” This was meant to emphasize the whole point of why we even hold elections while also giving a reason to what this party is about. We can’t have the party without voting, now can we? The acronym of “Voice on The ballot Everytime” emphasizes the voice each citizen holds. The blue and white letters are in close proximity to each other because even though they are two different colors, they are meant to be read all together after looking at the word “vote.” There is no extra space between the blue letters and the white letters because the acronym would not have read as smoothly then.

Towards the bottom of the ad is where all of the information necessary to attend this event can be found. The sentences “Join Us! Watch Your Vote Make a Difference” is grouped together because they should be read with one joint meaning: that each of our voices holds an important part of the election, and this power should be watched together. The information grouped together at the very bottom is seen as one because it is alike information. It is below where it says “Join Us!…” because this information tells you how you can join us. The use of both red and white words in these two groupings is to provide emphasis on the important words that are used to show emphasis and what should be read first.

A lovely element of white space, or in this case gray space, is a valuable element of proximity. This allows for readers to not feel too overwhelmed while looking at the ad. Another way for readers to not feel too overwhelmed is to simplify the number of different fonts and colors that are used. There should only be 3-5 different elements that a reader has to look cipher through. This ad has three colors that are easily readable off of the gray background, and there are only two different fonts used, just at different sizes.

When looking at the rhetorical situation, the purpose of this ad is to promote this election watch party for 2020 to an array of voters on social media. While promoting this event, it is also showing the importance of voting and the voice we each have. Hopefully, this purpose comes through, you enjoyed looking at it, and you even caught the little easter eggs I threw in about America and voting.

Now, I must leave you with a quote from the wise Leslie Knope,

It’s not a movie, it’s our real life.“

(Brinlee)

Thank you for reading! – Samantha Belle

Works Cited

Brinlee, Morgan. “15 Times Leslie Knope Totally Nailed 2017 Politics.” Bustle, Bustle, 26 Feb. 2017, http://www.bustle.com/p/15-leslie-knope-quotes-that-are-startlingly-relevant-to-politics-in-2017-40555.

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designers Design & Type Books: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. Peachpit Press, 2008.