Monday, Feb 24th Mon/Wed VisRhet

Today:1)Check-in2)Remember your Logos are due/how to submit3)The readings4)Working with Ads5)Team practice! 6)Homework

“What makes visual media a problem? All societies are saturated in images: forests of symbols, spheres within spheres, scenes of life, imaginary others, dreams, hallucinations, illusions. Social life is dependent on people communicating all sorts of images, visual, aural and literary, in stories, pictures, sounds, songs, dances, myths, prayers and so on, usually while in a state of dreaming semi-consciousness.”

I’m going to hit you with some advertisements that are what we’d call low hanging fruit. We all know that “sex sells.” The following images play off that in various ways. Let’s try to figure out the context and why, rhetorically, they are meant to work. What are we supposed to think when we see them? Do we? Is that good?

Sex in AdvertisingSo I’ve chosen some obvious “using sex to sell our product” ads. As we look at them, use your skills to rhetorically determine what the advertiser is trying to convey to you.

It was so big it tore my mouth, opening that wide.

Hey… I got wood.

The shaving my face thing turns you on, right? Oh.. Nice undies.

Abs included.

Bet you never think of pork the same way again.

Stop looking at my nakedness! Oh, wait, it’s just my super-soft clothes.

I splatter my face with colors, and pose like this, because it’s sexy. And

girls always sit like this.

If you don’t neuter your dog, he’ll want to do what you’re thinking of doing to me. And that’d be wrong.

Tutorials

A number of you expressed that you could use some extra help with the software, so I have posted a number of tutorials to the course website for you.

In the remaining time tonight, I want you to work on a flier with your team. You should use some of the effects you can learn from the tutorials.

The Task

I am offering an IMS 211: The Analysis of Play class this Summer II. Right now, enrollment is… not up to par.

You’re going to make a teaser flyer for it. It’s a class about video game theory. It runs from June 30 to August 9th. It’s a great elective for IMS folks, required for the game minor, and will be taught entirely online.Sell it!

Design Task 5

Take a photo of yourself and make it look somehow different (check out the tutorials for suggestions or come up with your own).

Upload the image to your Tumblr when done.

For Wednesday…

Remember to bring in or email an ad– we will do a little more of what we did earlier today analyzing, then we’ll talk about Intellectual Property Law and, time permitting, practice a bit more.