Toward a unified theory of visual-verbal strategies in communication design

This paper presents a descriptive framework for modeling the visual designer's rhetorical strategies. Revising and extending the theory of representational composition postulated by David Kaufer and his colleagues, visual communication artifacts are described in terms of types of audience experiences created through small units of visual decisions, including the choice and use of images, layout, and typography. The framework is intended to provide professional and technical communicators with a metalanguage that enables them to articulate the rhetorical appropriateness of visual choices. The framework is also used to develop a better understanding of visual design strategies that are commonly used by authors/designers to create communication artifacts that are created for similar rhetorical situations.