Hi everyone, my name is Emily Wolff and today I will be providing a rhetorical analysis of the online website of Guernica. To start off, I will provide some background information on the site. Guernica is an online magazine that consists of various mediums that focus on different forms of art and politics. It can be said that Guernica is an arts magazine, as it incorporates different forms of art such as poetry and writing pieces; including fiction.
The targeted audience for this online publication would be for anyone interested in learning more about global politics and anyone who enjoys the arts. Because of the type of context the magazine uses, it is intended for adults to use; although open to anyone who can understand the level of writing. Tieing into the purpose, the purpose of Guernica is to provide a medium for people interested in the topics of global politics and people who have an eye for poetry and the arts in general. Guernica provides a means of entertainment and enlightenment for it’s readers and contributors as well.
Before going into the modes, I would like to make the claim that the way Guernica functions is effective and appropriate in terms of an online magazine.
Visual:
Color: The color of the website is mainly black with splashes of orange. The integretation of these colors against a white background makes them stand out. As you can see at the top here, the category you are under is highlighted orange, so it’s easy to see which one you are on; which is definitely helpful.
Font: The use of bolding and font size is absolutely perfect. Looking here, the main topic has the largest font and is bolded for accessibility. For example, looking under politics here, the titles of the various articles are in black ink and in larger font. The captions are smaller in size and provide a brief synopsis of the article.
Media: In looking at media, there is an integration of pictures, text, and sound. This is very effective in keeping an audience and bettering their experience, because they have a picture to go with what is being discussed. Looking at poety specifically, some of them provide a narration. Let’s take a look at “Milk Teeth” over here. As we click on it, there is a picture of teeth. And here we have a place where we can hear the narration of the poem, and scroll down to find a picture of said teeth.
Info architecture: In terms of information architecture, there is a navagation bar at the top with the search bar included as well. This creates easy navigation for it’s users and is displayed effectively as seen here.
User experience: Looking at user experience as previously mentioned, the experience is positive because of the modes coming together. The magazine is easy to navigate, and all the modes come together to make for a positive experience; due to the simplicity and straightforwardness of the website.
Aural
Looking at the aural mode, there is the usage of sound when it comes to the narration of poetry. The tone of the authors voice is calming and is slow enough where one can understand it. Looking here at this poem, the poem is able to be narrated.
Linguistic
The language used in this website is sophisticated, yet simple enough to understand. As we look over this article entitled Notes from a Nothing, we can see it laid out here. The author’s usage of simple words make the reader’s experience more enjoyable and captivates the reader’s attention.
Spatial
Now diving into the spacial mode, the publishers did a great job spacing everything out appropraitely. There are white columns on either side of the page, grabbing the reader’s attention to focus on what is in the middle of the page. We can see this by looking at the front page.
Gestural
Transitioning into the gestural mode, there are a couple things that viewers can do here. There is a search bar at the top right up here, where people can type what content they would like to see. There are also some additional options under the more tab, such as what we see pictured here.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Guernica combines all the modes effectively and provides a great medium for people who are interested in art and global politics. It’s purpose is direct, and the user experience is definitely effective. I feel as though there is no need for change about this online publication whatsoever.
My name is Tayla Wibecan and today I will be doing a rhetorical analysis on the website the Paris review. This is a professional literature website where authors and writers can submit their work to be reviewed. As you can see, they do reviews on issues, interviews, fiction, poetry, letters and essays, art and photography. They also have a podcast and YouTube videos.
After doing a rhetorical analysis on the professional website The Paris Review, I think the website needs to reconstruct the page, so it is more symmetrical along with changing some things to make the website not look as bland.
Visual
Color-The title along with paragraphs of the page are written black. There are pops of hot pink as you can see the subscribe button and some of the titles. As you move your mouse over an article the color of the title changes to hot pink.
Font -The font for the website is serif that makes it look very professional and sophisticated.
Media– There are a lot of pictures and videos that can be found on the site. They all are very different
Purpose of images/visuals- For readers to see what the article is about
Information architecture– menu bar and dropdown menu bar
User experience- Overall the website was easy to navigate through however after a while of the lack of color and symmetry it got kind of old and boring.
Aural– There’s no sounds when you press a button or anything like that and the video options do not play automatically unlike some other websites might do.
Gestural– you can enter your email address to be part of their newsletter. They also have an advertisement at the top that you can look and exit out of.
Spatial– There is a lot of white space on the sides, too much for my liking. Everything is left centered.
Linguistic– This is a very sophisticated website that is used by very educated people and because of this you won’t see, and slang used or incomplete sentences. Instead you will find proper grammar and spelling throughout the whole site with full and complete sentences.
The audience is geared towards those who are interesting in literature. Specifically, those who want to publish/upload their own work onto the website or read and learn more about work that is published already.
Purpose– to provide a space where authors and readers can submit their work of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry.
Context– As you move along to the about page under history you can see that the Paris Review was founded in Paris in 1953.
The site I will be rhetorically analyzing is pshares.org and this is the website for Ploughshares at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. Ploughshares has been sharing literature since 1971 along with four literary journals posted annually.
Thesis…
Ploughshares website is a place where they post and sell their own literary pieces and journals. With a clean and simple website design, Ploughshares has made it very easy and capable for consumers to navigate their website and to find any journals or literary pieces they need.
Audience…
The audience that visits and uses Ploughshare are individuals who have great interest in literary journals and various different genres. This could range from people who are older and highly educated or students and younger people who enjoy literary pieces. The audience varies and there is no main audience as this site appeals to many different people.
Purpose…
Ploughshare is intended to give consumers the ability to purchase and read affordable literary pieces. The site has various different articles and even allows readers and potential consumers the ability to subscribe to the site to gather greater information.
Context…
The context of the website is designed in a way to which it can satisfy various types of readers and is a go to place for many types of consumers who are seeking literary journals. Furthermore, the site offers the date in which many of the journals are published and gives readers the ability to read older or newer journals.
Genre…
Ploughshares offers various journals that are composed of various different sub-genres, the website doesn’t focus on just one genre as a whole. But many of the pieces are used for educational purposes and to inform larger groups of people. However there are still many books for personal use.
Modes:
Visual…
The website is very simple and visually appealing as its design is unique and very professional. It efficiently and effectively shows everything that the user needs to see such as the various journals, blogs, subscribe, shop, and about. They also utilize social media and make it very visible and easy to interact with.
Aural…
The website lacks really any sound of aural interaction. There’s no noise and nothing that can produce any sound.
Spatial…
The simple and clean spatial layout of the site is evident and it offers users the ability to navigate it with ease. Everything is clear to the user and when you are searching for journals they are all clearly and simply laid out.
Gestural…
As this is a website and not a brick and mortar place. There is really no physical interaction with the website however you can interact digitally with the people at Ploughshare.
Linguistic…
The linguistic mode shows that the website is very professional and the words and phrases used are simple and to the point. There is no unnecessary language on the site as everything has a purpose and offers useful information.
Conclusion…
When it comes to journals and literary pieces Ploughshares is proven to be one of the best choices when it comes to a site for readers. Looking at this site from a different perspective allowed me to see how useful it is and what a truly professional medium looks like.
The Paris Review is a literary magazine featuring original writing, art, and in-depth interviews with famous writers and artists. The main goal of The Paris Review is to present quality works of art for a well to do audience that has a vast knowledge and interest in reading and discussing art from the nineteenth century to present day. The Paris Review website employs the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos in an effective manner with their high end reputation for publishing and displaying high grade content, as well as harnessing the development of creativity within writers and artists. The Paris Review takes pride in promoting appreciation for excellence in the art world by publishing great content for the public to see. The purpose of this website is to provide a platform for writing and art pieces to be published and displayed in order to grow the specific literary and artistic categories.
Overall the visual representation of The Paris Review is elegant with a minimalist design, putting a major emphasis on the work created by the authors and artists. The home page gives us an idea that the Paris Review has been around for some time with the classical font adding a sense of trustworthiness . The Paris Review even advertises the pieces they publish and display on the home page, which in turn helps one comb through the website, giving you a sense of direction in what genres the website offers. The website is presented in a professional manner, organized by tabs that house creations from different categories of work being fiction, poetry, art, etc. Interesting enough the Paris Review is rich in culture dating back to the mid nineteen fifties with creative pieces, but better yet the website under each genre organizes the pieces by decade making it simple and easy to explore or find what you are looking for. The easy to navigate and well organized format is a great representation of spatial mode and strengthens the ethos appeals that the website has to offer for its users. The Paris Review became famous for its interviews of notable writers and artists, one of many was with Ernest Hemingway under the fifties collection of interviews. Hemingway is a household name writer, along with a plethora of others are featured in the collections. The lack in color of the background of the websites is an example of the pathos appeal the website has, drawing the bulk of the attention to pieces they publish and display. A visualization for each writing piece is offered to create interest with an imaginative impact on the reader before reading anything about the particular piece of writing.
Apart from the writing, the Paris Review has such a great following in the art world that they even have a store tab where they sell a series of expensive limited edition prints created by contemporary artists. They are involved in the niche market of displaying high end art for buyers, sellers and enthusiasts to enjoy, adding a different element to the content that they offer separating them from others.
Through analysis of the Paris Review website, one can concur that when effectively employing the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos with the content and layout, that there is a reason why the Paris Review has been around for some time and is successful in what they do.
Ball, Cheryl E., et al. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. “Chapter 1: What Are Multimodal Projects?” Second Edition. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018. Print.
The Paris Review | American Literary Magazine.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Paris-Review. Accessed 14 Feb. 2020.
The Paris Review. https://www.theparisreview.org/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2020.
My thesis is that TinHouse is a decent website with a clear target audience and a strong purpose. However, the context can be confusing at first glance and there are a few poor UX design choices.
The reason I say Tinhouse is an okay website is because it does a few things well. For example, I mentioned it has a strong audience. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you can find the About Us and Contact Us pages. From my experience, these pages are usually located at the bottom of the main page or within the Menu or navigation bar. Clicking on the About Us page we can get an idea on who the owner wanted to target. (and it shows that) Win McCormack said, “I wanted to create a literary magazine for the many passionate readers who are not necessarily literary academics or publishing professionals” (“About Tin House”). I believe this statement lines up to what you can find on the website. Clicking back to the main page you can see TinHouse has a lot of content that covers simple topics like Taxi Driving or “My Baby First Birthday.” Most of these books and poems are about the little things in life we often take for granted.
As mentioned in the thesis, Tin house has a strong purpose, and that is to sell. Immediately upon entering the website there is an emphasis on Magazines, Books, the Workshop, and the Shop. Someone new to the website will assume this is where things can be bought. Their assumption will be correct after clicking due to the 3 links being connected to the shop. There are other things that the TinHouse website does that keeps it looking functional and that is its use of font and the color palette. The font is simple and neat, and the colors don’t stand out much. I do think TinHouse could benefit more if they had a more focused theme of the black and red because most of the colors on the website comes from the images. Context is the main issue of the website due to the 4 images that take up half the page. These images weren’t that obvious to me, so it was a little confusing trying to figure out that it is an advertisement. With further exploration it is apparent that users will interact with the website through the shop. The other issue was the UX design choices, mainly the layout and arrangement of the website. The layout of TinHouse is reminiscent of a tablet or mobile layout. The stacked lines in the top left corner opens a hidden side bar. These are usually only needed on a mobile website to conserve space. Since this is present on the main computer website it may be easily missed and other features the Tinhouse has could be ignored. Other than that, the most important information, which is the shop, is displayed on the center of the page. The arrangement of the website could be better. Right now, it is arranged in a top down order so visitors would have to scroll to see the blog posts since the 4 images at the top of the page take up most of the screen. There is also the position of the menu button in the top-left corner that, I think, should be replaced by the full sidebar that pops up when clicked. It would help visitors find their way around more easily. In conclusion, there are a couple things that can be improved, such as the arrangement and layout design, but TinHouse is a website that knows its audience and gives them exactly what they’re looking for.
Works Cited
“About Tin House.” Tin House, https://tinhouse.com/about-tin-house/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2020.
Cheryl E Ball, et al. Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. 2018.
For my rhetorical analysis, I will be focusing on the spatial aspect of the Paris Review. When first arriving at the homepage of the Paris Review, the user is met with this screen. Right off the bat, the navigation bar is the same color as the rest of the screen, which makes it harder to recognize that it is in fact the navigation bar. Though the website does a good job of breaking down their content into neat categories, the minimalist nature of the design looks too bland when first entering the site. And when having new users coming to your page, it is important for them to be able to immediately recognize important features of a website such as the navigation bar.
As you scroll down, there is a daily, rotating text block that has featured pieces for the day along with a picture for each piece. Having this daily aspect is good because it brings new content to the users attention each day that they come to the site. But past that there is a two column stack of articles to grab users attention to different pieces. Though the titles are in black text which sticks out from the white background, and are accompanied with pictures related to the article, below them are short synopses of the different articles but in pale gray text. Even as a young person with good vision, I feel as though I need to strain my eyes to read the faint text against the white background. The pink accent of the website is also unfavorable to the readers eyes as it is distracting because it is so bright but isn’t always pulling your attention to something of importance.
Now, taking a deeper look into the site, when clicking on the letters and essays portion within the reviews category of the navigation bar, this is what you are met with, a daily letters and essays text block. which functions similarly to the other daily featured part from the homepage, keeps the website fresh and up to date. But the color of the light gray text is too dull in comparison with the pale blue background. Here, using white text or continuing with the black color text, like in the titles, would have been better and easier for users to read. Then, next to this block is a neat index for the year and the authors name of various letters and essays. This is a good addition to the website as it allows users to efficiently find pieces of work that they are looking for. Along with this, the black text goes well with the white background and is easy to read. After the daily feature, there is a single column of letters and essays titles’ going down the rest of the page. Again, they use black text for the titles, which is easy and pleasant for the user, but continue with the light gray text for the synopses below each title. Though there is less pink here, which makes scrolling through and reader each title easier, the pale gray text is still difficult on the eyes for quick reading.
Yet, in comparison when looking at the Guernica website, the aesthetic of the page’s layout is much more soothing on the eyes. And the black background of the navigation bar makes it stand out and easy for users to identify right away what it’s purpose is. Though this site does not have a daily feature like the Paris Review, it does however do a better job with the display of their articles. They sized it so for the first couple the user only sees that article’s title, description, and an image to go along with it. Then as you scroll down it breaks into a one row, three column article suggestion with images and black text below it, which is easy to read. After that it goes to a single stack of articles with the black text next to an accompanying image for the piece. Overall, This site is more efficient at getting their main points across and in a visually pleasing manor too.
Rhetorical Analysis:
The Paris Review is a website for the dedicated and invested fans of the art world, one could even say they are the so called “one percent” of the art world. These are people who are well versed in the arts and come to this site for information regarding the niche world of higher-class arts. But the website tries so hard to cater to this audience through the design of their page that go overboard with it. So much so that their attempt pulls attention away from the important content they have to showcase. Such content that they have to offer includes interviews, podcasts, reviews, and much more. Which makes the Paris Review a good source for information for the niche group they are trying to garner attention from. But, even though the Paris Review has a lot of information and content, the layout of the website is distracting and pulls the users attention in too many directions.
Upon first entering the website, the home page is done is such a minimalist fashion that it almost comes off as unfinished. The navigation bar blends into the background it is the same white as the background, which is counter productive as that should stick out for newcomers to immediately draw their attention to. However, despite the flaw in visual, the navigation bar does effectively do its job in breaking down the categories of content offered on the site into relevant categories. Below the navigation bar, there is a rectangular text box that is half image and the other half are titles of featured pieces for the day. The images rotate with the different titles as it cycles through to show the user what is offered. This function is very good as it keeps the website feeling fresh through suggesting different material each day. But past that are small square images with a title and description below them. The use of the images to grab the user’s attention towards that piece is beneficial as multimodal content is important for keeping the intrigue of users. Yet, the use of the light gray color for the text below the articles is a strain in readers’ eyes. Because of the white background, the faint color of the writing is hard to read unless the user really focuses their vision on those words. Along with that visual mistake, their use of the bright pink as the accent for the website is distracting from the content. Due to the attention-grabbing nature of neon colors like the pink used in the site, the color constantly pulls the users focus all over the page as it stands out in their peripheral vision. And even after going deeper into the website and looking at the letters and essays portion under their review’s category, the issue continues. In their daily featured section, similar to the one on their home page, the square text box has a pale blue background and is accompanied by light gray text. Here, the issue of the user needing to strain their eyes just to read the description is prevalent on another occasion.
For further analysis of the Paris Review, I looked at another literary website to see how they designed their page’s layout. The other website that I compared the PR to was Guernica. When arriving at Guernica’s homepage, the aesthetic of the page is immediately more pleasing to the user’s eye. The navigation bar stands out as it is black against a white background with white text. They also structured their article layout in such a way that for the first couple articles, the article’s image is a big square with the title and description next to it in black text, only showing one at a time. This allows the user to fully take in the content one piece at a time and fully ingest the information at their own pace before moving on to the next piece. This continues to be their style for article layout as you go down the page, besides for one row of articles that contains three of them along with an image and description respectively. And because they can move one piece at a time, it is much less overwhelming compared to the inundated feeling the Paris Review gives as it fits multiple pieces on the screen at a time. Even when clicking on the arts and culture tab in the navigation bar, the most articles they fit in one screen is six. With the format being two rows of three columns with pictures, titles, and descriptions with each of them. And the text below the articles is black, which pops much more with the white background than the light gray color used by the Paris Review. The secondary colors used on Guernica are also a dull maroon like color, accenting the website nicely without drawing an unnecessary amount of attention to it.
The Paris Review aimed for a chic and minimal design for the website to fit their aristocratic fan base but overshot the look and ended up with a distracting aesthetic. Through their use of bright pink as the accent for the site, it is a peripheral distraction that tugs at the users focus when trying to read the content they have provided. They also make the searching process harder on the user by lightening the color of the descriptive writing to light gray when it is against an all while background or a pale blue one. The minimalist design of the site also gives off the idea of lacking consideration to add more color that would better compliment the classy aesthetic they are aiming for. As seen in comparison, the Guernica competently uses accented colors to better the visual component of their site without being over the top. Using more neutral colors, or at least adding more colors to dull the bright pink accent would be in the best interest of the Paris Review.
Reference Page
Leon, A. de, Deshpande, J., Loeb, E., Machado, M. R., Baird, S., Wang, M., … Lutz, T. (2020). The Guernica. Retrieved from https://www.guernicamag.com/
The Paris Review. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.theparisreview.org/