Revision of Ad Project

• Be sure you complete both Parts A and B below
• both the project and self commentary described below are due September 24, 2001. See the Guidelines for Turning in this assignment.

A. The Project Itself. Choose one of the following two options:

1. Rhetorical Option: Redesign of an Advertisement

Find a newspaper, magazine, phone book, or Web-based advertisement that you think would benefit from redesigning. Take a look at examples of sample redesigns in Williams, pages 20-21, 22-23, 24-25, 60-61. To recreate and rearrange the elements of the ad for this redesign, you may use software such as Word or PageMaker and/or a scanner, or follow Williams' low-tech technique of using tracing paper, which she describes on page 129.

At this point in the semester, your goal in this assignment is to exercise the rhetorical and design principles we're learning, rather than mastering the mechanical means of producing the document. Rather than production, you want to give yourself a lot to say in the "Self Commentary" (see B below), and to give your classmates lots to say about your "moves" in the workshop.

2. Creative Option: Parody of an Advertisement

Find a newspaper, magazine, phone book, or Web-based advertisement that you would like to comment on by composing a parody. Use any of the methods described under "1. Rhetorical Option" above for producing the redesign of the ad. The goal in the Creative Option, however, is to redesign the ad both to use good design principles to comment satirically on the style of the original text, the product or service, the motivations of the advertiser, etc. In changing words and images from the original, take care to go beyond mere mockery or word play and to use the changes to suggest or imply a larger point.

B. Self Commentary

This is your chance to explain to me, your professor, the many ways that your redesign demonstrates your grasp of the ideas and techniques we've been talking about so far, as well as your natural and profound degree of sensitivity and insight.

Write a two-page (double-spaced) commentary on your redesign of the advertisement. Try to specify and reflect on the principles or techniques of rhetoric and design you used. Claim credit for anything you see, even retrospectively, whether you were aware of using technique in your process or not. In this sense, your commentary may be partly a work of fiction, but, like all good fictions, it should lie convincingly to tell a greater truth.

Use and underline terms and ideas from Williams and Schriver to describe these principles and techniques (you might even use these terms as the headings of sections within the commentary). If you use terms from other classes you've had, underline them as well, and define them in a glossary at the end of the commentary. Also, discuss how your personal process and approach to this project exemplifies or combines the traditions of design that Schriver talks about on pages 55-97.

Be sure to mention and describe any models of good design or writing that you kept in mind as you worked on your revision of the ad. If you have questions or point of concern that you'd like me to ask your classmates to address during the workshop, please include these questions at the end of the commentary.