Exercise 10: Rhetorical/Genre Analysis

Many of these portfolio's follow the standard web page structure. Most of them have a header followed by a nav bar, symmetric grid-like rows/columns, body content and a footer. In terms of visual design, there are some different approaches, while some of the portfolio's go for a blog like appearance, others go for a more of a designers approach by personalizing the stylistic visual choices. The usability for most of these portfolios is very efficient and straightforward. As someone who's never seen these specific individual portfolio's before, right when I got to each page, I knew where to look and where to navigate to find more information about this person. The nav bars were all easy to see/find and each page had the appropriate information displayed. As for rhetorical approaches, I really enjoyed Sophie Gardner's home page where the font was big, bold and certain words in the text were clickable. This really invites the viewers to engage with the site itself and makes things much more fun and interesting.

(Ethos,Pathos, Logos) Pick one portfolio to analyze — it can be one that you responded strongly to (whether positively or negatively), or that find to be representative of the group.

Portfolio: For these questions, I decided to analyze Eva Lotta Lamm's web portfolio. I felt as her portfolio site was somewhat representative of the group in the sense that it had the similar basic structure, formatting of content and design.

Ethos: Right away, I notice the hero image which I'm assuming is her. In this case, the hero image seems to be Eva, speaking at an event which immediately establishes some credibility or some sort of importance/authority. Right next to the image is a short title that reads, "Trainer, Speaker, Visual Thinker." The words trainer and speaker tells me that she is well versed enough in her field to be able to teach other people and give them advice. This also establishes a sense of credibility. LAstly, if you scroll down a bit, You can see a background image of a list of different companies, which can be assumed that she either worked for or worked with. It's also presented in a professional manner without it seeming like she's showing it off.

Pathos: In terms of language choices, in the first few lines of text you notice she is talking about herself in a third-person perspective. The text is placed right next to the hero image of her mic'd up and speaking at an event. With these two elements together, it makes it seem as if she's being introduced and about to enter the stage to speak. Typically at speakers events, it's very inviting of all people and in this case, the users. Next, her designs are chosen well. In the top left corner, you can see her logo which seems like a hand drawn doodle. If you scroll further down, she has more images of hand-drawn-like doodles. These are paired with the bright and slightly pastel colors which gives her site and overall friendly/playful and inviting feeling.

Logos: Under her "Speaking" page, she has a list of her upcoming talks and public workshops with dates, event title, and location along with previous events that have passed. Then, under her "About" page, she has a list of books that she's contributed to. Also, on the home page, the first bit of text reads, "Eva-Lotta helps companies to visualise complex problems, so they can see them from a new perspective." Then if you scroll down a bit you see a background image of a handful of companies which can imply that these are the companies that she's work with/for. She also has a blog and her own personal shop where she sells her merchandise.

Pick one portfolio to analyze — it could be the same portfolio you looked at for ethos/pathos/logos, but it doesn’t have to be.

Going off on Eva Lotta Lamm's portfolio again, she is using formal language. Since the entire site is written in third-person, the language has to be formal. I don't believe Eva is using any sort of specialized vocabulary but rather is using somewhat simple vocabulary. What I mean by this is that she is not using an field specific vocabulary, like words that only someone who's worked in that field before would be able to understand. This is important as her site will be able to get the attention of a broader audience. I don't notice any other language features on this site.

Some strategies that I would apply to my own portfolio is keeping consistency for easy navigation, keeping the language I use easy to understand for all, establishing some credibility through the display of projects/work I've done, and use colors/design choices that instill feelings of invitation and creativity. Some tactics that I would avoid is being too show-offy with my work but rather just put them on display, not have a boring and generic-looking layout that would bore the viewers.

Sangmin Yun

Rhetorical / Genre Analysis