Continuing with our exploration of the key concepts and theories that we cover throughout our course, on this second class, we covered the topics of: rhetoric, the three means or persuasion as defined by Aristotle (pathos, logos, ethos), rhetorical figures (metaphor, hyperbole, irony, etc.), visual metaphors. Then we dived into the field of semiotics and semiosis, covering sign definitions and classifications from Peirce and Saussure, including understanding icons, indices and symbols. In addition, we also briefly introduced the concept of discourses and the social perspective on meaning-making and then turned to social imaginaries.
Halfway through the class, we had a discussion prompted by two questions:
How can rhetorics be useful to you? and How is it useful for designers?, which led to a variety of inputs from the whole class and interesting discussions and examples on how we could see rhetorics in action.
Here are the comments that resulted from this:
At the end of the class, we formed groups to work on a list of 5 images or objects that we asked teams to collect around concepts such as Freedom, Designing, Health, Mexico and Heroes. We explored the imaginaries behind them and worked on trying to challenge such representations by proposing changes to these images or objects in diverse ways. This led to very interesting thoughts and reflections, but also approaches that the class took to try and change the significations of the representations that they were working on.
Final outcomes of this activity will soon be available on our blog.
