Rhetorical Design is composed of the design portion of digital platforms.  There are five key components when it comes to rhetorical design. These concepts are emphasis, contrast, organization, alignment, and proximity. These are the components that are used to create a product or tell a story.  During this semester we created projects based on these concepts of rhetorical design. Every project has to have these concepts correlate with one another in order to tell the ideal story. We examined these concepts and determined that this is what determines the project to be linear or nonlinear. 

Emphasis is the process of stressing a word or a group of words to give them importance. This is important for visual texts. This will initially guide the reader throughout the text as a whole. Photos can be emphasized as well. Bright and colorful photos stand out the most. Contrast plays a role in emphasis. Most of the contrasted elements are those that are most emphasized. Contrast determines the difference between elements. There is a case where one element stands from another. There are different ways to determine contrast. They consist of size, placement, shape, and content. The way in which contrast works is to take advantage of the white space. This will help determine what will pop out of the page. 

Organization is the way in which all of these elements are arranged in a coherent function. This makes the whole product or story come together. The organization is choosing the colors and the photos and where to place the visual aids. This will help make the strongest argument possible. This is for the overall process.  The alignment is for how specific things in the overall project line up. This controls the audience’s movement across the text.  Every piece of text or visuals should be aligned correctly. Everything is done for a reason. 

Proximity is the final concept within rhetorical design.  This refers to the closeness in space. This is what determines how close the elements are from each other. This helps readers understand the text.  This can also apply to the relationship between visuals and text. Close proximity determines a close relationship.

My projects have been designed based on rhetorical design.