Tired of always creating the same kind of images? Do your clients need a different aesthetic? What are your resources?
Written language is a territory that easily becomes laden with forms and meanings when transferred from thought to screen. With metaphors, metonymies, similes, antitheses, and much more. Texts matter… sort of. What about images?
Visual rhetoric has emerged as an ideal resource for persuading and conveying something different to users. It’s a phenomenon with a history, but it remains a fantastic tool for connecting with the audience: showcasing two features of a product, presenting it in an original way, highlighting a brand element…
Shall we play? Rhetoric likes to play with the meanings in images. Look at these book covers: Urbrands, by Risto Mejide; Panorama de la biología contemporánea, by A. L. Lehninger, A. J. Marshall and others, Why They Cried, by Jim Hanas. What do you think?
What do you do when your clients need a different image design? We turn to classics that you’ll surely recognize and that we remember today for continuing to be a fantastic resource in graphic design.
Transmitting new meanings
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Images are a powerful visual communication tool. They convey messages at lightning speed, providing the immediacy and persuasion that text alone sometimes can’t achieve. Images lend a hand, and when they come together… Wingardium Leviosa! Persuasion flows.
Sometimes brands want to convey new meanings and different emotions. To achieve this, graphic designers often use visual rhetoric. It’s ideal for transmitting meanings and emotions that go beyond the literal. And the best part is that they haven’t gone out of style; they have their roots in the past and their relevance today. Here’s a look at the most commonly used visual rhetorical figures in advertising, graphic design, and illustration. Do you use them too? Have you ever needed a design that you couldn’t reproduce?
In Salago We can help you give your clients a unique touch. We’re creative, approachable, and we speak clearly and directly. We’re all brothers and sisters, children of design.
The form that images take in graphic design
We are fortunate to belong to a sector where nothing is impossible. You dream it? You create it. You think it? You reproduce it. You achieve it? Pure bliss. Transforming the ordinary into something extraordinary is the gift of those who visually communicate messages with clear objectives and manage to reproduce them in the public’s mind. Visual rhetoric is a fantastic tool for them and manifests itself in creative ways like these:
- Typograms. A game, a game, and more typographic play culminating in a visual composition. Its value lies in the aesthetics of the composition rather than in the text itself. Different typefaces, a mix of forms, graphic resources that reproduce the idea they represent. Click to see an example.
- Visual synecdoche. Have you ever used it? It involves using an image that has an inherent connection or some kind of intrinsic link with what it evokes. Imagine the image of the Kio Towers evoking the city of Madrid. Or a bone with the image of a dog. Synecdoche is ideal when what you want to represent is universally recognized. Look at this example.
- Visual metaphor. It consists of showing one image to signify another. The meaning is conveyed through comparison. However, these images do not necessarily have to have any resemblance to each other. Here is an example by Chema Madoz.
- Visual metonymy. Visually, it’s a device similar to synecdoche and metaphor, but with a clear difference: the meaning of the images bears neither resemblance nor an intrinsic link. What occurs is a cause-and-effect relationship, a container-and-contents, a producer-and-product, an author-and-work, etc. More clearly in these images.
- Visual antithesis. This is used when contrasting images are shown for some reason or quality. For example: to show the before and after of something, the male-female relationship, black and white, etc. See for yourself..
- Visual analogy. They relate characteristics and products. Imagine the packaging of some food product that uses green colors to suggest to the consumer that the product is organic. Now, Look at this example.
- Visual analogy. It should be simple so the audience can easily interpret it. It’s ideal for establishing similarities between different things. Look at this example of ketchup with the analogy of a language.
- Visual hyperbole. In design, it’s mainly used to highlight or reinforce a particular feature. In the previous example, there was also a boot that the brand intended to emphasize its durability. You’re going to look at it again, aren’t you?
These types of shapes are very common in advertising and marketing. We see them often because of their ability to convey messages without the need for text. But they aren’t the only forms that images can take in graphic design; there are countless types you can use to represent what your clients need: ellipsis, humor, sarcasm, eroticism, aphorisms, onomatopoeia…
Where does visual rhetoric come from?
Long-standing and deeply rooted in politics, rhetoric has spread to all areas over the years, its literal and symbolic meanings leading us to persuasion.
It’s one of the most widely used advertising tools of all time because it allows for the construction of the textual and visual messages that are meant to be conveyed to the viewer. Without complications. Original, well-developed, fluid, flexible, and persuasive ideas. One of the tasks commonly requested of graphic designers is to create a company’s visual identity, from the brand concept itself to its application across various media. Rhetoric can be part of this process of structuring corporate identity.
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