Rhetoric examples / research.

We were given a list of different rhetoric approaches we could use in our posters, seeing this really highlighted the many paths of rhetoric we can take for this assignment. I am generally not one to take stuff seriously, so perhaps parody would be a good route for one of my solutions? I get the impression there will be an element of cynicism applied to most things I create regardless though lol. 😛  I found a couple examples which were good uses of these rhetoric devices.

Juxtaposition:

The placement of the cigarette alongside the shadow which reveals it is a metaphorical gun, gives it immediate sinister and lethal associations. A very simple, yet effective design.

I thought the combination of these two elements was a very effective way to get the point across. As we all know, ants are typically keen on sugar, so this ad is very clever by placing the two together and showing the ants actually avoiding the sugar free lollipop completely. I also like the use of diagonal composition in this image.

Metonymy:

The use of red representing blood, tied in with the dollar sign and gun and the word 'softly', such a mix of provocative images evokes ideas of violence, greed and murder.

I love the unusual mix of color and imagery in this image. the pink matches with the soft 'flesh' of a human, yet the outline of the fist is made from barbed wire. It is a very effective anti war, anti violence poster highlight violent nature.

Parody:

This Parody image mocks the provocative attention seeking famous kim kardashian image, it's pretty humorous. 

This is a parody of well known imagery of the movie 'Jaws', instead using a word pun and juxtaposition of clothing to represent water and an iron "snark" emerging from this linen ocean. It's amusing because to some, the concept of chores can indeed be horrifying !

Homage:

This image has been done as a homage to the constructivist style with it's clean solid colors and use of red, black white and linear lines.

This image was a homage to picasso, they have imitated his well known cubist style to create their own artwork.

Subversion:

I love this creepy mix of pop culture icons, an image of Marilyn Monroe has been subverted with the addition and merging of Mickey's face to add a creepy yet simultaneously playful element to this image.

This designer subverted an image of the teletubbies by collaging garbage over the rolling green hills, and scary giant teeth/mouths where their faces are suppose to be. These childrens characters now become something much more dark and nightmarish.

Satire:

This is a rather dark use of satire, making a point of the addictive nature of alcohol and how people can get 'hooked'.

This is another sort of dark satirical image, which shows chinese workers playing as 'santa' and delivering presents down chimneys of westerners houses. The colors are that of the chinese flag, this is a commentary on the fact that most of the items we use, or give eachother as gifts, are now made in a factory in china.

Pastiche:

This musician has done a pastiche (perhaps it's a homage?) of the iconic Michael Jackson thriller album cover, and uses a play on words to further push the references (the album is called "Iller")

Dynamism:

In this example all the elements of the composition all spiral around a main focus point of the image, they lead your eye in and are a good example of how we can use hierarchy within our poster.

This image depicts vertical and horizontal pattern to carry movement effectively across the image and is a good use of visual elements to dictate where your eye goes around the composition.

Identifying my direction of argument.

The main points of argument against the flag change that I seemed to be drawn towards, were the argument for maintaining our history, and not disgracing the flag that we have known and loved for so long. We as a nation choose how we represent that symbol and we can either make it a positive or a negative thing. I don't think it's right that a prime minister try to force an expensive referendum upon us.

Which leads me to my second line of thought on the subject. There are actually much bigger social and political issues going on in our little country, that this flag debate is actually distracting everybody from. I feel as though our time and money are much better spent in these areas than something so superficial and blatant as a cosmetic makeover to our flag. If it isn't broke, why fix it? Meanwhile, there is poverty, violence and corruption going on around us every day. If we took measures toward creating awareness of, and focusing peoples attentions on things such as the increasing poverty, domestic violence, the secrecy around TPPA, alcohol and drug abuse, etc. we can be a better as a society and be proud to be part of this country, regardless of our flag. Changing the flag is not a cure all medicine for any issues socially, racially etc. or otherwise going on in our country. But if people paid as much attention to more important things as they did the flag change, maybe then things would change for the better?

Class Excercise

We did a few exercises in groups where we dissected the visual devices and rhetoric at play in a variety of images, I took down notes for one of these, for others like the excercise where we wore a different 'hat' to pick apart an image, I joined in verbally, (I would have taken notes if I knew these were suppose to be included in process...) which was still good practice for being able to dissect the elements and intended themes of images and text.

These exercises really helped us get used to visual rhetoric and different approaches and the language of the visual devices at our disposal for this assignment.

Brainstorming

I quickly came to the conclusion that I was far more interested in the flag debate than the private school topic, and started out initially quite on the fence about the flag change, but after digging around and joining in on the passionate debate, I swayed more in the direction of being against the flag change. Hence I did a mind map / brainstorm of concepts and words & imagery which I associated around this side of the debate, and potential points of argument and emotive words I could utilize in my posters.

This process helped me to identify the key points of argument which were of interest to me, and to see what possibilities there were as well as what things immediately stood out to me regarding the flag debate.

Debate Notes & Discussion.

For our first session we were shown examples of the "activism" style posters we would be creating, and clever executions of designs which used pastiche, parody, etc. as inspiration.

We were also separated into groups based on our star signs (of all things lol) and asked to debate a particular view point -- which wasn't necessarily aligned with our own personal feelings or beliefs -- regarding the flag change, and public vs. private schooling. I was in the group arguing for keeping the NZ flag. I found this point of view had a decent amount of arguments to bring up so it wasn't too tricky.

I looked into several news stories and articles which covered various sides of this topic, and even watched some international coverage of the issue

On the show 'Last Week Tonight With John Oliver', he poked complete fun of the idea of our flag change, showing some of the most ridiculous examples of flag ideas as part of his skit, for example the amazing flag with a kiwi shooting lasers from it's eyes. I found the articles, particularly the ones found on stuff, tend to spin the argument toward being pro-flag change usually. which didn't appear to reflect the sentiments of the general public on social media or comments sections of said articles.

Here are some of the notes and key points we came up with as a group, and then some I wrote after reading opinions about the subject to discuss during the debate.

Points I wanted to make during our debate:

Why the current flag is good:

As far as flags go, the current one is actually pretty decently designed. 

People would find issue with any flag we change it to, and we will never be able to please everybody with any alternative we pick.

Like majority of the new flag suggestions, the current flag has the southern cross stars on it, this is a navigational icon and waypoint for both maori and british cultures, and these stars are something unique to our part of the globe and this makes their inclusion in the current flag  something which ultimately encompasses all new zealanders as a whole, and all new zealanders should feel like they can relate to.

Uniqueness/Identity:

The design the current flag was based on was first created in 1840, Earlier than the first design of the Australian flag was only used from 1853 onwards. If anybody should be changing their flag, it should be the Aussies. :)

The current flag has been the identity of our nation for well over 150 years and to change it now would be to undermine our nations history and identity. Other nations in the world have a difficult enough time as it is matching a flag to our wee country, and throwing a new flag into the mix after using that one as our brand for so long would be detrimental to our nations identity.

Any 'Identity crisis' new zealand may have standing out in the world, shouldn't be attributed to a mere flag. The flag is only a symbol and it is the merits of the people of our country which determine our place and significance in the world. We don't need to change our flag to get attention.

Alternate versions and flag designs exist within alot of countries and are adopted and freely used by groups who prefer to use those flags, this in no way indicates a country should rethink the flag design for an entire nation.

Patriotism:

The current new zealand flag has been the flag many have fought and died under, and made sacrifices to protect in war. Not only were soldiers killed in action buried with those flags, but many of the brave soldiers who did make it home are elderly now and surely would feel sad about changing the flag. The thought that someone would even humor the thought of changing it is unpatriotic and insulting, and serves as a further showcase of how out-of-touch with the new zealand people our government has become.

Cost:

The thought that 26 million (and probably more) of taxpayers money be spent on something as trivial as proposing to change a flag, an action which accomplishes very little impact or real merit upon us, while many of those same taxpayers can barely afford to feed their own families is shocking. We should not allow such great sums to be spent on such meaningless cosmetic indulgence, the money can easily be put to better more significant uses to better our society.