Journal Five-Visual Rhetoric

Four basic design principles are alignment, proximity, repetition and contrast. Alignment is known as items on the page that are lined up with each other. In order, for you web page to have good alignment choose one alignment, the left side, right side, or center, and use that one alignment on the entire page. Mixing alignments makes your page look very unprofessional and weak. In addition to vertical alignment, horizontal alignment is also important because the text sits on an invisible line called the "base line" which is horizontal. If a page has a lot of information on it, it should follow strict alignment in order for it to be clear. For instance, elements should be moved away from the extreme left edge of the web page and italicizing caped words make a web page also look weak.

The second basic design principle is proximity, which is the relationship that items develop when they are close together. One has to be very conscious of the space between elements. Items should be grouped together that belong together. For instance, a headline with a sub-line, captions with pictures and subhead with text. Headlines should always be close to what it is related to or the audience of your web page would be in a sense of confusion. Also, never hit two returns between paragraphs because it will make the paragraphs look like they do not belong together. 

The third basic design principle is known as repetition. You repeat certain elements that tie all the disparate parts together. On a web site, navigation buttons should be the same color, style, illustration, format, layout and typography. Many logos can also make web pages look repetitive.

 The last basic design principle is contrast, which is what draws your eyes into the page and pull you in. All pages should have a focal point. To provide contrast and create a focal point make your logos BIG. The focal point should be the biggest and first thing you see on the page.

After reading basic design principles, it made me think a lot about my page. However, I think that alignment is not that important in this type of web page. The way that our papers are aligned and the colors, text and pictures that we use should give a sense of our personalities and also a feeling of the paper that was written. However, color is very important in a web page.  Color gives an overall feeling and personality for the site. If the site is dark, the audience may get a sense of gloominess and/or anger while viewing the page. But if the page is full of color and brightness, the audience will feel the tone of happiness. 

Journal Four-Thinking About Audience

After reading Trask's and Knier's essays, I noticed a great deal of difference between the two. In Trask's essay, Tourist, Stay Home, it seemed to me that her audience was someone on a higher authority, someone she is trying to explain her anger to. For instance, some government of some type or some one who is able to listen and change some of the way Hawaiians have been brought up. You can tell that the tone of Trask's essay was very informative as well as serious and somewhat angry. She explains in her essay "Through the overthrow and the annexation, American control and American citizenship replaced Hawaiian control and Hawaiian citizenship. Our mother-our heritage and our inheritance- was taken from us. We were orphaned in our own land...We are not happy natives". By this quote you can definitely feel the tone of seriousness and anger. However, in some ways I also felt that Trask was also trying to use a little sarcasm here and there. For instance when she quoted "Most Americans have come to believe that Hawaii is as American as hot dog's and CNN." Trask's essay was highly argumentative but she used a tone a seriousness, anger and sarcasm to get out to her audience. 

On the other hand, Knier's essay was a lot different. His audience was definitely his teacher and his peers in some sort of class. The reason why I liked Knier's essay was because he knew exactly who he was writing to. For instance, he was informed about his general audience and his demographics so therefore his essay was right on point. The content and style of his writing was sarcastic as well as informative. Knier gave his audience information about how and why he likes walking around Best Buy and love being around electronics. However, to make his essay more interesting he used sarcasm when he said things like "So me and my money went across the street". Both tones of the essays were informative as well as sarcastic. However, Trask's essay was a lot more serious, argumentative, and appropriate for her audience while Knier's essay was just another type of essay he would write in class for his teacher. 

The audience of "The Bride and Prejudice" are definitely young teenagers. The movie seemed more like a real life fairy tail sort of movie. The bold font in the preview with the sparkles around it made it seem like a fairy tale. However, all of the color and laughter during the preview made the movie seem like a comedy. So the tone of "The Bride and Prejudice" would definitely be a romantic comedy. However, "The Pride and Prejudice" was more like an older type of movie. It still has the same audience and it still looks like a romantic movie, but it seemed a lot more serious than "The Bride and Prejudice". The dark colors and the time era of the movie made me think of the tone as just a romantic older movie. 

Journal Three-Maus

I believe the characters that are shaded are the ones who did not survive the Holocaust and the ones who are not shaded are the ones who did survive. Probably one out of every hundred people survived so thats why its such a big ratio in people shaded and people who are not shaded. I believe that it was a good idea for Spiegelman to use the comic strip form. It catches the eye of younger readers. Most children like to read comic strips, no matter what its about; I know I did, so by using a comic strip children can be better informed about what happen in the Jewish Holocaust and what happen in the Survival of Auschwits. The use of graphic novel, especially in a narrative like this one, makes the story a lot more intersting. Instead of just reading a novel about something that has happen years ago to actually draw it out makes the reader understand the history a lot better. I know that I am better at accessing information in a visual form. So by using a comic strip or drawing out pictures in other kind of way for narratives or anything, helps me retain information faster.The line that I remembered from the comic strip was "To go was no good, but not to go-it was also no good". Spiegelman did a great job on making the reader want to read more after the last line. The first sentence of a narrative should catch the readers eye and the last sentence of a narrative should make the reader keep thinking or want to read more, in this case about the Jewish Holocaust.
If there was no visual for this text I wouldnt want to read more. Narratives that have to do with history should always have visuals, especially for younger readers because it catches their attention and also makes them focus better. The visual interacts with the text because you know whos talking by the converstation bubbles. The purpose of the visual was to the ratio of people who survived the Holocaust and people who did not survive the Holocaust.

Journal Two-Man In The Mirror

When I saw this picture the first thought that came across my mind was Micheal Jackson's song "Man In The Mirror". Micheal Jackson's song was a very powerful song when it first came out and still is. He tried to get across to the world that before we try to make a change in the world we need to make a change within ourselves. There are so many people dying from starvation, diseases, and poverty and people walk around like everything is perfectly fine. Instead of worrying about ourselves all the time we need to look in the mirror, open our eyes, and realize that people need help and the only way to help them is if we do it ourselves. However, this format of the visio-cultural text can call out to even younger people around the world. In this picture there is a man stepping into a mirror and it represents that he is making a change within himself and after that, within the world. To me its like a song turned into a cartoon. When most children listen to songs they really dont get the full meaning of the song, they just like the song because of its beat or just because their favorite artist is singing it. I believe if you turned the song into a cartoon it would reach out to more children and help them understand that most of us are living like "royalty" and sometimes we can be selfish and take it for granted.

Journal One-Family

This image represents me because my family is my everything and has been a big part in my life. I am a strong believer in keeping families together and close to one another and what caught my attention in this picture was the togetherness of the family. As you can see in the picture the family is bonding with each other by a small family reunion and sets a tone of happiness. Without my family I wouldn't be where I am today, at Florida State University on an athletic scholarship. They are what I call my backbone and has gotten me through many tough, stressful and heartbreaking situations in the past. My family are the ones I can count on and run to whenever I need help. Whether it's school problems, relationship problems or even something as simple as "What should I wear today?" They have taught me the important values I need today as a young lady living on my own. At the end of the day my family is my blood, my heart, my soul, my everything.