How does design convince us? What explains its impact? How aware are designers of the rules they employ – to some extent unknowingly? To an increasing degree, contemporary design research manifests a growing interest in the rhetorical mechanisms of design practice.
This anthology reinterprets the classical communication skills of rhetoric as a new and encompassing metatheory for design. It is relevant to all areas of contemporary design – from graphic design to architecture to interface design.
Design as Rhetoric joins three realms. By defining positions, it presents the historically relevant texts and outlines the contemporary discussion and its controversies. In case studies, it also assembles contributions on the most important areas of research, for example “Interactive Rhetoric,” “The Rhetoric of Design and Gender,” and “Rhetoric and the World Wide Web.”