Audiovisual Rhetoric. A Metaapproach to Design

"Wherever there is design, there is rhetoric"—in this way Kenneth Burke's quotation from 1950 can be modified in order to describe the fundamental relation between the two disciplines. Rhetorical scholarship provides a set of rules and techniques for effective communication as well as a system, how to apply them with the most impact on the audience. In the approach introduced in this paper, rhetorical scholarship is transferred to design. Therefore, we present a model, which describes the design process from a theoretical point of view. We show that design can adapt basic rhetorical categories and tools for the practical work, its analysis and evaluation. To apply rhetoric's knowledge and system to design processes leads to a fundamental understanding of the main forces occurring between designer, medium, and user. An introduction to the historical relations between design and rhetoric illustrates the possibilities of applying rhetorical theories to visual as well as to audiovisual forms of communication. Furthermore it is shown, how the rhetorical framework in detail can be adapted to describe the design process, especially focusing on techniques for addressing an audience, on specific methods for analysis and evaluation, and on rhetorical figures that are used in design processes. The competence of this approach will be illustrated with a case study on Audiovisual Rhetoric.
Keywords

design theory, information visualization, interdisciplinarity, research methods, Audiovisual Rhetoric