Brochure Analysis[1] |
NOTE: None of these categories are comprehensive. You are responsible for appropriate detail and development.
Rhetorical Situation Audience How much do the readers already know about the subject? What can you assume about readers’ design preferences or their previous experience using this kind of document?
Purpose To what extent is the document intended to inform, to persuade, or to stimulate interest? What issue, question, or task generated the document? Context How will readers use the document? Will they read it from beginning to end? Search for information? Will they use the document at a desk, at a computer terminal, in the field? Design Principles Contrast What draws your eye first? Is it appropriate? Does the contrast “work”? Does it look purposeful or does it look like a mistake? Repetition Does the document use repetition to unify it? Does the repetition add visual interest? Alignment Are the document elements visually connected? Is there a clear purpose to the alignment? Proximity Is the grouping of elements purposeful? How is white space used?
Typography Typographical Choices
Designer’s Ethos Ethos Which visual elements contribute to ethos? To what extent do these develop the document’s credibility or character? Gestalt Principles and Figure-Ground Contrast Consider the extent to which the document follows the Gestalt principles of figure-ground and grouping and how its adherence to—or violation of—these principles affects the design principles.
Conclusion Finally, conclude the document by assessing the role of visual conventions, the degree to which they are (or are not) followed in the document and the impact these conventions have on the visual rhetoric.
[1] Based on Kostelnick and Roberts Designing Visual Language and Robin Williams, Non-Designers Design Book |