Rhetoric, Design And Vodka

(republished from 2005)

Rhetoric was traditionally concerned with writing or speech, used where it is not necessary but instead used for effect in order to impress or persuade the reader.

In design ‘visual’ rhetoric can be used the same way it can in writing, in order to add meaning, or just to persuade or impress the viewer. For this reason it is often used in advertising.

Jacques Durand states that there are always two operations in figures of rhetoric; addition (eg: repetition) and suppression (eg: concealment). A substitution or exchange may also occur in either of these figures. A substitution is a suppression followed by an addition, and an exchange is two reciprocal substitutions. Each figure can be executed in several ways.
Rhetoric adopts two levels of meaning, or language, ‘language proper’ and ‘figurative language’. This relates to both Barthes’ and Eco’s theories on semiotics in that they split meaning in to two areas as well, Barthes in to ‘language’ and ‘speech’ and Eco in to ‘signification’ and ‘communication’.

Language proper is the syntax/rules that the communication must follow in order to communicate and figurative language is the system in which the message is communicated, ie: the nature of the operation and the relation that unites the variable elements.

Absolut have a whole series of ads using suppression; the product is missing and so becomes obvious through its absence and even more obvious over time. I knew about these ads but only recently found out how many there were and that they have a cult following – take a look at these sites: absolutad.com, absolutcollectors.com and absolutad.org.

The Absolut website is also great at adopting other figures of rhetoric. Try rolling the mouse up in to the top left corner and you get back stage access where you can even graffiti the area!