DD
What is Digital Design?
Design Choices should always consider and support
THE RHETORICAL
SITUATION
(audience, purpose, genre, context)
The e-ssay or the digital essay is writing that has been created to exist in a digital rather than a physical space. In other words, this writing is meant for the screen rather than the page. How you think about composing and what composition means must change too. Rather than simply transposing the flat, linear genre of the academic essay into a digital space only to remain flat and linear, digital writing should explore the constraints (both limitations and affordances) of the digital space by using hyperlinks, audio, videos, and images as well as consider the visual and textual composition.
Rhetorical Situation (n.)
The rhetorical situation of a text takes audience, purpose, genre, and context into consideration.
Coined by Lloyd F. Bitzer, but with deep Greek roots, the rhetorical situation looks at all the other "stuff" that brings meaning into a text.
Design Choices should always consider and support the rhetorical situation
EMPHASIS—what has been emphasized or given the greatest importance? How does that affect the reading of the essay? Is there a central focus or has there been a repeated image or textual quality for emphasis?
CONTRAST—the difference between elements, the combination of which makes one element stand out from the other (can be done with color, size, placement, shape, and content)
ORGANIZATION—how are the elements arranged to form a coherent unit or functioning whole? How does that arrangement reflect the purpose of the text?
ALIGNMENT—how do things line up? Alignment controls how our eyes move across a text. You should use a “journalism justified” alignment for this piece.
PROXIMITY—how close are elements (or groupings of elements) placed to each other and what relationships are built as a result of that spacing? What associations are you making for the reader?
Check out some print and digital layouts to see some of these design principles in practice.