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This is the Visual Rhetoric blog of Joseph Henry Stadolnik IV.
It was created for the B-Term 2017 session of WPI's Visual Rhetoric course, taught by Professor deWinter.

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Information Graphic, Part 3: Redesigning our Graphic

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Drafting Process      With the feedback we received from Professor deWinter in mind, we set out to remake our graphic so that is specifically focused on encouraging biology majors to get some computer science experience. Almost immediately, we got the idea to use an image of DNA as the central focus of our infographic. DNA was a perfect choice not only because it is fundamentally related to biology, but also because its form is that of two interlinked strands. This linked structure works very well with the message we are trying to convey that computer science is relevant and important to biology. Our more narrowed focus also allows us to suggest very specific classes for biology students to take at WPI if they wish to expand their computer science knowledge. The two we chose are CS 1004, the introductory computer science course for non-majors, and BCB 100X, a bioinformatics and computational biology course. CS 1004 also has the added bonus of being taught using the lan...
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Humanities and Arts Comic, Part 2: Characters and Rough Draft

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     After our brainstorming session, Jess and I each sketched our own ideas for how the characters representing each discipline could look. We also had been considering having one established as the "leader," who would do most of the talking. The rough designs I came up with were as follows:      My "leader" character was based off an idea we had tossed around in brainstorming, where they appeared as just a well-dressed figure with a mask. My interpretation would have the mask be WPI's seal, and the figure to be none other than Gompei himself. Foreign language was intended to be a dictionary with a globe one it, rhetoric was a podium with a face, theater was a comedy and tragedy mask duo, history was a suit of armor, literature was formed from a stack of books with glasses, and the arts were represented by a palette with a paintbrush and a pencil for legs. The sad checklist was intended to represent the Breadth and Depth requirement, as it cou...
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Humanities and Arts Comic, Part 3: Rough Draft #2

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Rough Draft II      After receiving Professor deWinter's feedback, Jess and I went about revising our comic. While she added lists of suggested classes for students to take for certain thematic approaches and darkened the lines on her characters, I made a simple infographic to explain how the thematic approach works, and added in some word art to make some parts of the text pop out more visually. We also did a bit of re-arranging, mainly on the first and fourth sections, to try to improve the flow and readability of the comic. Our completed second draft appeared as follows:      The infographic I made is visible in the pale green box on the left side of the fifth section. I chose a sun to accompany the step of finding a theme because it light casts down over and illuminates everything, metaphorically similar to how the theme affects and informs all of the subsequent steps and might even put the chosen courses in a different light t...
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