Market Trends for the Visual Suggest Rapid Growth!

After reading Kress' Multimodality, I was left with lots to think about in regard to visual rhetoric.  Honestly, Kress' book had me paying attention to traffic signs everywhere, analyzing websites for no particular reason, trying to notice the sound during horror/suspense movies, etc.  The concept of modal ensembles really added something to the way I view the visual--I had always been prone to view various modes distinctly without necessarily paying attention to how they worked together (at least on a conscious level).  But, overall, Kress' argument against language being the most dominant form of communication was the most substantial addition to my thinking about visual rhetoric.

 Obviously I did not believe the visual was a minor factor.  However, I found myself pausing for a while when Kress noted that “…’language’ has to be seen in a new light:  no longer as central and dominant, fully capable of expressing all meanings, but as one means among others for making meaning, each of them specific” (79).  Reflecting on the current state of society, I started to wonder how much of a backseat language has taken to the visual.  I know this is a contentious topic and that it can be debated that the visual has always been prominent.  Yet, I tend to think the technological innovations of the last 20-30 years have shifted the balance of power, so to speak, especially with the rise of the World Wide Web.  Regardless of whether there has actually been a major shift, the predominance of the visual cannot be ignored.

I also became fascinated with Kress' discussions about design.  This particular passage especially caught my attention:

“A rhetorical approach draws on the resources both of competence and of critique and utilizes them in the process of design.  Given the presence of modal choice in representation in a multimodal world of communication and a social world where choice is demanded and the instability of the environment of communication, a rhetorical approach is essential.  Design meets the interests of the rhetor (most usually the same person) in full awareness of the communicational potentials of the resources which are available in the environment and needed for the implementation of the rhetor’s interests.  Design gives shape to the interests of both rhetor and designer in their world.” (26-27)

I remembered working on my first project for this class and all of the various design choices I made throughout, all specifically tailored to my ultimate rhetorical purpose.  As the semester has progressed, this awareness of the rhetorical power of design has grown for me.  Even my 2nd and 3rd projects, which didn't involve creating in the same way, still were influenced heavily by design.  I played with where I would place the different pictures of the artifacts I wanted to discuss, oftentimes shifting the images around multiple times before I was happy.  

Before this class, I had always viewed design as either aesthetic or efficiency based.  Design could make something look nicer or allow for better production, performance, allocation of space, etc.  Yet I had never thought of it functioning as rhetorical.  Now, as this semester draws to a close, I see design as a crucial element in visual rhetoric.  This development has been a process, but Kress, in a way, made it more transparent for me.  Ironically, after a semester of analyzing various visuals (photographs, cartoons, paintings, vernacular objects, etc.), it was the written word that finally clarified this for me.  But that still doesn't make it any more significant than other forms of communication.