This paper will discuss the distinctions between e|mediated and print (typo)graphic design by which its role might be reconsidered as significantly authorial, not merely formal or technical. Reproducing meaning on-screen alters conventions and assumptions which traditionally inform print-designers' attitudes to visual organisation. Not least amongst these is the increased visual significance of wayfinding requirements. Yet comfortable assumptions about (typo)graphic design as cultural producer must also change. As an ideological, elitist tool of consumerist persuasion it is not a rigorous discipline of public service. Yet ironically, not only does it exemplify the five arts of ancient rhetoric, the communicative action of the public sphere so central to democratic participation (supplanted by the rationalist abstractions of elitist philosophic discourses), but it also stands uniquely capable of addressing the paradoxical 'fissure' at the heart of contemporary rhetorical practice: the " division of the logos into form and content" (Hariman 227). Emedia enables virtually infinite and free publication, yet within technical constraints which engender possibilities for a radically analytic deconstruction of the conventional form of discursive codex-textuality. Through both static and dynamic juxtapositioning by which oscillation between formality and function may be visually instantiated it is possible to use (typo)graphic designing as a hermeneutic tool to make explicit the 'designing' consciousness behind all literacy, yet which is not normally explicit in writing. In a society saturated with remediation e|media may enable a radical, even humanistic rhetoric of (typo)graphicality.Hosted by the Scholarly Text and Imaging Service (SETIS), the University of Sydney Library, and the Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (RIHSS), the University of Sydney

Robertson, Alan

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  PaperA rhetoric of e|mediated typo|graphicacydesigningonscreentypo|graphicacyAlan RobertsonUnitec Institute of Technology Auckland New Zealandjoetal@kiwilink.co.nz70 Selbourne StreetGrey LynnAucklandNew Zealand09 . 378 4783 (phone)09 . 378 4771 (fax)IntroductionI will present this paper visually, using Macromedia Flash, therebydemonstrating in presentation the concepts, and rules-of-thumb discussed inthe paper. The paper itself is a theoretical, discursive snapshot ofreflection in|on theory in|on visual practice. By the time you read thispreface, some content will have shifted. Indeed, the process ofediting-by-design into Flash may introduce new angles, alter discursivecontinuity, and even, hopefully, inspire seductive refinements to theconceptuality and structure of the argument. It will, in short, constitutean explicit rhetoric of visual performance. And demonstrate (or not!) theefficacy of typo|graphicate designing as an hermeneutic instrument forgrasping written, visual, designed, e|mediation.The rhetoric of e|mediated, visual argumentation must be typo|graphicate,and thus designed. Unfortunately conventional graphic design is shamelesslycommercial, stylistic, often pragmatically low-brow (rarely taken'seriously', except by its practitioners), and by-and-large a wholly-ownedcorporate subsidiary. It may thus be deemed, in terms of humanitiesresearch , say, little more than a practical, not a design art (!). I hope,then, to provoke some support for its vitiated potential by contextualisingthe paper, with relevant material, within an e|mediated artefact in themanner of a website or 'sightcd' (sightsee disk). Thus the dominant designconstraint for the presentation, per se, will be to effectively outline thetheoretical salience of the abstract|paper while demonstrating the visualartefact within which it is a significant component.Event 1 Literate to visual'Funny Signs' was an Acrobat 'visual lecture' for graphic design students,comprising firstly, a 'paper' on semiotic [de]sign-as-ideology, written anddesigned as screen-statements of 7-30 words (with occasional hiddenrollovers), in large white text on a black background (36 point size on theoriginal Quark XPress). The second part was a 'slideshow' of about 80 of myphotographs of signage and graffiti, arranged into categories of'funniness', such as '+' (by-hand deletions|additions to originalsignage), and 'juxtapositions' (odd, amusing 'found' signage). The eventwas an entirely visual, non-performance in silence (soundtrackless,notwithstanding the e|mediated context). It was read, in absorbed silence,by a participating audience: first, 'word-screens', reading in effect as  imagery; then photographic imagery, representing the words of signage. Itwas the typographic design which at once enabled, yet also challenged theaudience to focus attentively on each screen. It is this visual nexus oftypo|graphic design-as-image-as-screen|information design which preoccupiesme.Event 2 Visual to literateAfter the 'lecture' I attempted to put the 'visual' paper' back onto paperas a 'proper' paper. Since published in TypoGraphic 56 (Journal of theInternational Society of Typographic Designers) as 'Typography: the signsof ideas', the argument which had seemed convincing in presentation,didn't read well as literate, linear text.The process of deconstructivetypo|graphic designing by which a text is edited-by-design into concise,sequential screen-views did not translate back directly into discursiveliteracy, even though it had begun there originally. The compact,juxtapositional purposiveness of typo|graphicacy and the almost televisualdisjunctiveness of its sequential continuity, which had seemed inpresentation to sustain meaning-making and seamless memorability for viewerinteraction with the rhythms of argument, were too short, too concise onpaper.Event 3 A published [l]iterationFurthermore, I had two papers, not one. The second part, aboutresponsibilities of the intellectual professional, which had 'worked' inthe 'visual lecture', didn't follow on paper. In its published iterationthe paper sketches the hegemonic privileging of reason withwritten|typographic discourse, from Plato to Kant and Peirce, pointing tothe parallel presence of an 'other', peripheral humanistic tradition: arecasting of the Romantic|Enlightenment paradigm-shift (Tarnas 10) within adesign context (Wilson). It suggests that e|media may signal a"paradigmatic shift from the stasis of typographic textuality to a 'winged'(Mitchell) remediation", of 'imagic' typo|graphicality and argues thatgraphic design exemplifies the five arts of rhetoric so deplored by Plato.It concludes with the somewhat breathless hope that e|mediation mightinstantiate an on-line 'globalocality' of public space and dialogic publiclanguage (Arendt, Bauman) to counter the dominating dialectics oftechnocratic corporatism. Finally it reiterates Lanham's suggestion thate|media has facilitated a kind of secondary visual orality of email (andnow txt mssgng) in which dialogue returns to the centre of communication.What that paper does not do, is to query the intrinsic rhetoricality oftypo|graphic design through application of rhetoric itself as an'interpretive instrument' (Gaonkar 50) to mediate a prevailing culture ofoverwhelming rhetorical visuality in which graphic design is uncriticallyaccepted as a powerfully hegemonic medium of 'communication'. Nor does itaddress the darker implications of a globalised network of 'broadcaught'(Negroponte) media, in which, as Virilio has pithily put it, "interactivityis is to real space what radioactivity is to the atmosphere".Event 4 Literate to typo|graphicateIn presenting this paper I will attempt to demonstrate the efficacy oftypo|graphicate visuality as a rhetorical instrument of public discourse.What you are reading now is visibly, typographically literate, but notvisually typo|graphicate . The typography of discursive codex-text (Lanham)must be seen to be read, but it does not exemplify the graphicacy of whatwe are familiar with as 'graphic design' in consumerist society. I will notargue that grasping 'graphics' is as different from reading writing, as'reading' books is different from 'viewing' television (a familiar  argument: see Paglia|Postman), but rather, reiterate that the rhetoricalityimplicit in that difference can be particularly significant in e|mediation. Theonline screen is a uniquely responsive (interactive?)visual mediation of otherness, yet one which has evolved within a cultureattuned to televisuality (e|media and television share the samescreen-format as I discuss below). On television typographic textualitydisappears. As Bolter puts it "the text is absorbed into the video image" .In the e|medium, however, graphic design is back on screen not only toenable wayfinding and to distinguish it from, and organise,content-display, but to also devise strategies by which the additionaldimension of hermeneutic rhetoricality encompassed by hypertextuality mightbe visually rationalised . All material is theoretically available, butsuch complexity demands careful design.Expressly, as an ideological medium of persuasion in corporatist society,graphic design is complicit in the consumerism of over-expansionistproductivism.Yet paradoxically graphic design visually exemplifies the five arts of therhetorical padaeia by which the participatory dialogue of the democraticpublic sphere was performed. Wit is derived from the invention ofunexpected and original conceptual|visual juxtapositions. Argument may wellbe sustained through copywritten textuality, but moreso through the overallcoherence of the visual composition, the design of the three constitutiveelements: text, display text, and imagery. It is this 'imagic' coherencewhich constitutes the true rhetorical heart of the visual 'performance'. (Ihave coined 'imagic' to describe the peculiar union of image-as-imagerywith image-as-perceived-public-reputation, the central principle drivingthe contemporary rhetoricality of visual 'communication'.) Styling, in thetypo|graphic fashion or 'look' of the moment, can be so significant aconcern as to either dominate user-perception as the 'true' message (bad'design'), or to be exploited by poor designers as a substitute forinvention and argument (even worse 'design'). And finally the artefact isdelivered through a highly finished technical grammar and technology ofreproduction.Constraints of e|mediated typo|graphicacyPrint and 'onscreen' discursive visualities are different 'conduits'through which the visible abstraction of language may be 'delivered' (Reddy284) as designed visual 'communication'. Print and onscreen e|mediation areprivately accessed while presentations (whether e|mediated or not) arepublicly (group)read, and often employ conventions such as bullet-pointphrases which are rarely intended for contiguous reading, like codex-text,or to be comprehensively coherent as standalone documents.Yet apresentation is onscreen e|mediation writ large, requiring only theaddition of way-finding conventions for direct user-access and control.Butin designing appropriately for e|mediated graphicacy , there are othervisual considerations too.The e|medium has inherited the landscape-format used universally intraditional image-centred media (cameras, television, cinema). Thus'landscape' is associated with imagery. Even static, juxtapositionaltypo|graphic design seems to make more visual sense as 'landscape'. Theavailability of unlimited free colour reinforces this bias towards imagery(just like television) provoking implicitly 'imagic' expectations in thescreen-viewer. For, like print periodicals, screens are both 'viewed' and'read'. But not only are screens wide they are small in size relative totheir resolution. A typical 17" screen is A4 on its side, yet itsequivalent legible resolution is extremely coarse by comparison withpaper.Screen-wide, single-columns of small, print-size html text, then,  will be even more unreadable than on paper. Because visual 'real estate' islimited onscreen, instincts are to pack every visible pixel with as much'information' as possible, thereby ignoring the dual medium-specificvirtues of either unlimited virtual screen-size, and|or virtually-unlimitedscreen availability. Worse it denies any need for design-sense. As EdwardTufte has noted, the problem in dealing with information overload is notits complexity, but rather the quality of its designed organisation. Assuch, 'authoring' e|media is as much about designing as writing, andinterrogates conventional perceptions of what either writing ortypo|graphic designing entails.Rhetorical typo|graphicate visualityWriting itself is a design-mediated act, a design art. For thewriter|rhetor, inventing a rigorous, seemingly rational, 'well-arranged'argument is construed as the primary objective. Yet in any design art theobjective is a crafted seamlessness between intention and artefact; anintegration of form and content in which neither can be imagined withoutthe other. So too the arts of visual rhetoric exemplify the inventiveambiguity of human art-making in which inventive synthesis and therule-following of practical craftship are integrated. And, as the seamsbetween intention and artefact in discursive rhetoric seem particularlytransparent (Kaufer) so are they in typo|graphic designing: after all,people have been reading type for five hundred years.Rhetorical reasonability encompasses more than logic. A rational,well-designed argument will also deploy all the subtleties of a formal'styling' embedded in the personal 'knowing' of the rhetor, combined with asense that the performer is knowingly 'delivering' the performance, is aperforming presence. Presumably these latter qualities were the intangibleaudience-rhetor links excised by Peter Ramus from 'serious'writing only ahundred years after the invention of type (Ong, Lanham). By so doing notonly was that holistic integrity sundered by which rhetoric had beenperformed as a design art, but the abstract myths of 'neutrality','authority' and 'rationality' became elided with typographic literacy.Because it was self-contained, self-referential and abstract, typographictextuality aspired to an 'objectivity' which eschewed any taint of the'subjectively' rhetorical. Not only did print beget the myth of the'original' author (Poster), but also the myths that neither 'originality'nor 'neutrality' nor 'objectivity' were not in themselves intrinsicallyrhetorical conceits.Visible, typographic rhetoric has been flawed almost from the outset, witha bias towards the mechanistic model of human communication, and thedistancing abstraction of a privileged authority. But reading and writingare the social use of symbols to produce cultural significance; indeed, toproduce reality. Communication produces experience because words givemeaning to experience. In making and finding meaning through interpretiveaction "things are the signs of words" (Burke 359). Social reality is aconstruct, a participative, aesthetic performance of making-action andreality-production (Peters|Rothenbuhler). This is a different view of humancommunicative action than the information-transmission of 'communicationtheory' in which the transmissive 'message-package' seems somehowprivileged over receptive-re-construction. And of course, the 'visualcommunications' of mass-media are premised on this non-participative,top-down, producer-centred model. Consumerist graphic design is literallyand functionally rhetorical, yet its true rhetoricality is implicit withinits visuality. As an ubiquitous and overtly persuasive form of culturalproduction, its hegemonic power operates through the paradoxicalinvisibility of its visuality. Graphic design is so critically unquestioned  and so popularly accepted not just as normal as print, but as the defining'image' of what print means as a 'communication' medium, that it is itselfthe message; and the message is the rhetorical visuality of the imagic.Designing typo|graphicate animationThe 'dynamic rhetoric' (Bonsiepe 75) of animation introduces more than anadditional disciplinary dimension. Animated typographic 'figures of speech'(Bonsiepe 72) facilitate a particularly explicit visual rhetoricality. Forexample, in a very short animation 'What is 'creativity' in graphicdesign?' (in my visual lecture 'The End of Graphic Design') animatedtypography deconstructs and re-presents internally coherent textualcomplexity as subtle variations on the same key concepts. E|mediatedanimation also enables text to oscillate as dense and static linearity,typo|graphics, and a time-base, imagic fusion of form and content;simultaneously subject to both televisual disjunctivity and the associativediscontinuity of user-controlled hypertextual non-linearity.ConcludingDesigning text to be both graphic|discursive, and static|dynamic opensstructural gaps by means of content-derived visual juxtapositions whichliberate meaning, clarify associated concepts, reveal otherwise inchoatelinks, and designate visual hierarchies of emphasis. As a simultaneousinstantiation of meaningful formality, by design, typo|graphicacy canmediate the paradoxical 'fissure' at the heart of rhetoric: that "divisionof the logos into form and content" (Hariman 227). It can emancipate ahermeneutic understanding of the analytical processes and constraints towhich it is itself subject, thereby transcending the sleight of hand bywhich 'commercial' graphic design conceals its complicity in the hegemonicdissemination of top-down consumerist message-making.But only if it isexplicitly designed for this purpose. And it can expose the 'designing'consciousness behind all literacy, the implicit rhetoricality of allcommunication. Then it serves a hermeneutic of ethical communications, akind of 'information design' which supports audience understanding,reasoning and reflection, outside the hegemony of a mechanistic mediaconstruct which excludes "context, history, expectations, goals,values,priorities, feelings, preferences and differences of intelligence"(Frascara). It is in the deceptive visual simplicity of good graphic designthat the knowing, ironic oscillation of postmodern discourse is mostconvincingly suasive, revealing what Thomas Frank and Judith Williamsonidentify as the true rhetorical agenda of visual 'communication': its'hipness'; its capacity for engendering a shared knowingness oftransgression. In short, what makes it 'cool'.BibliographyArendt H 1978 Between Past and Future London: Penguin.Bauman Z 1998 Globalization: the human consequences London: Polity.Bolter JD quoted in Lanham 1993, p213.Bonsiepe G 1998 Interface: an approach to design Maastricht: Jan van EyckAkademie.Butler F 1989 Eating the Image: the graphic designer and the starvingaudience in Design Discourse: history, theory, criticism, Margolin V edChicago: University of Chicago Press.Frank T 1997 The Conquest of Cool Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Frascara J 1997 User-Centred Graphic Design London: Taylor & Francis.Gaonkar 1997 The Idea of Rhetoric in the Rhetoric of Science, in RhetoricalHermeneutics: invention and interpretation in the age of science, Gross A &Keith W eds, Albany: State University of New York Press.  Hariman R 1989 Rhetoric of Inquiry and the Scholar, in Simons H ed Rhetoricin the Human Sciences, London: Sage.Hofmeester K & Charon de St Germain E eds 1999 Presence: New Media forOlder People Amsterdam: Netherlands Design Institute.Kaufer DS 1997 From Tekhne to Technique: rhetoric as a design art, inRhetorical Hermeneutics: invention and interpretation in the age ofscience, Gross A & Keith W eds, Albany: State University of New York Press.Lanham RA 1993 The Electronic Word: democracy, technology, and the artsChicago: University of Chicago Press.Lanham RA 1992 The Implications of Electronic Information for the Sociologyof Knowledge, paper given at the conference: "Scholarship, and theHumanities: the implications of electronic information" Irvine Ca.Mitchell WJT 1995 Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology Chicago: University ofChicago Press.Negroponte N 1997 Being Digital London: Penguin.Ong W 1982 Orality and Literacy: the technologising of the word London:Routledge.Paglia C & Postman N 1991 She Wants Her TV! He Wants His Book! Harper'sMagazine, March, p44.Peters JD & Rothenbuhler EW 1989 The Reality of Construction, in Simons HWedRhetoric in the Human Sciences. London: Sage.Poster M 1996 The Second Media Age Cambridge: Polity.Reddy M 1979 The Conduit Metaphor: a case of frame conflict in our languageabout language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (284-324).Tarnas R A New Synthesis Resurgence Oct|Nov 1999Tufte E 1990 Envisioning Information. Cheshire, Conn: Graphics Press.Virilio P 1995 The Virilio Reader, ed J Der Derian, Oxford: Blackwell,p17.Wilson, C St J 1995 The Other Tradition of Modern Architecture London:Academy Editions.Williams R (1983) Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society. London:Fontana.Williamson J 1979 Decoding Advertisements: ideology and meaning inadvertising. London: Marion Boyars.

A rhetoric of e|mediated (typo)graphicacy

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A rhetoric of e|mediated (typo)graphicacy

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