Grids
Something that caught my attention early in the reading in TWT was “Typographic grids are all about control”. I see this as being very true, perhaps even a “Truth”. The control of typography is used to allow a convention of sense making methods of transition and reception. It helps arrange shared cognitive modes. Without the typographic grid, with out that convention, without the instituted “order” of typographic grids communication would be, at best difficult.
The next logical position would be asking the question: Aren’t all grids all about control? The next question I would ask is: In these terms is control a bad thing? All grids, no matter when or where they are used are all about control. Grids encase that which we wish to transmit in a determined form. Grids are the most basic element of “presentation”. They serve as a map to information.
In looking at the brief evolution of the grid for content presentation on paper and for the net I see an exchange of methods of control as much as I see a potential effort to progress usability. I’m sure if I looked deeper, went outside the class texts, i could find some correlation between dominating social politics and global agenda and the changing of grid use. Is this bad? No, not really. It is the way we are as a human culture. The only “bad” that can be pointed out is how the grid is engaged to subjugate and oppress. It is there, its just a matter of seeing it.
Frames
Frames are all about control also. Framing allows the framer to force a perspective the framer wants transmitted. In the reading this is most apparent in the discussion of cropping on page 103. Balls or 12 inch boy-dolls. Showing either, by altering the framing, displays two different realities, two different elements of a world view. Even observing framing in architecture, the ways windows and doors are constructed (observing width, height, placement in the wall, how high or low the sill is or even the presence of a sill at all) relate similar ideas, similarly constructing reality as well as reflecting something of the culture that undertakes such production.
Figure/ground
Figure and ground (foreground or background) are more or less a reflex for me. This reflex may or may not be a good thing. I’ll just call it a thing, for now. it is of my opinion grounding is one of the most important aspects of visual rhetoric. Grounding is what brings figure and shape to life! the figure, the shape, is made in the grounded space. Grounding is mediation between what we can see and what we do see.
The trick, the real trick, is how to manage that relationship. It is easy to put something over a background. It is the natural visual language of the hunting and gathering nature of humanity. We negotiate background to find what we look for, what we need to see. The art of handling grounding and shape is providing what people expect to see verses what we want them to see. In this figure and grounding is like grids and framing. The two, handled well, is an exertion of control. Artfully created images, be they sculpture, drawing, graphic design, or those rendered through text of any type intended to reveal or obscure can be most potent. Isn’t that what spin or propaganda are all about? Manipulating the grounding of a concept so it is accepted as the creator of such things intended them to be perceived. In essence, figure and ground are the foundations of rhetoric.
A perfect example of this manipulation of grounding as a rhetorical foundation can be seen in a sophistic “joke” attributed to Dionysodours:
Dionysodours ,”Tell me: do you have a dog?”
“Yes, a real scamp,” said Ctesippus.
“And has he got puppies?”
“Yes, regular chips off the old block,” he said.
“so your dog is their father?”
“yes, I myself saw him mounting the bitch,” he said.
“well now, the dog is yours?”
“yes,” he said.
“He is a father, and he is yours—so he turns out to be your father, and you are brother to puppies!”
(page 360, Early Socratic dialogues By Plato, Trevor J. Saunders)
Though I have often questioned the effectiveness of this word-play, it does play with the concept of the manipulation of grounding and figure (the figure, in this case, being Ctesippus) dating back to the era that founded our modern practices of rhetoric.
To start, like many others, I hate the bio. In a bio we are supposed to tell the digital world of our deepest interests such as game design theory, digital literacies, multimodal composition, technical writing, rhetoric, and social media. Additionally, we are encouraged to reveal personal information such as the fact that I am happily married to a wonderful woman, I like cake and pie, or that I am really into cutie things like puppies and bunnies. Further more, we need to communicate our goals and dreams of starting a digital entertainment company or some day working for one as a producer or developer and/or work as a teacher teaching digital composition/development/design. finally we are also encouraged to provide education information such as I have a B.S. in english education (high school) and am almost finished with a masters in technical communication/rhetoric/new media composition and design.
All of this is to be done in roughly a paragraph with out being too detailed but still informative.