Professional Writing Studies Minor

Project Overview

Last semester, Mia Brady and Chelsea Vollrath worked on creating promotional materials for the Professional Writing Studies (PWS) Minor. Being CUPID Associates, they used their knowledge of visual design and rhetoric to combine multimedia forums to convince their audience to add the minor. They created a poster to be displayed at annually the Interdisciplinary Fair that and wrote a coordinating blog post, highlighting the benefits of adding the minor.

Rhetorical Decisions

Mia and Chelsea understood that the poster needed to be informative but also acknowledged that, by nature, a poster is not supposed to be very text-heavy as it is a tool used to highlight information but not necessarily go into detail. The Associates worked actively to limit the text on the poster, even though this can be challenging. Chelsea noted how they had to cut down the content as much as they felt they could and settled on highlighting the possible curriculum, a description of the program itself, a list of skills to be gained from participation, and quotes from students and faculty discussing their successes and its appeal.

By including these four sections, they appealed to two Aristotle’s means of persuasion: logos and ethos. The Associates include the curriculum and a list of skills to make students feel that adding the minor would be a logical choice. Chelsea appreciated the fact that the curriculum, being so flexible, meant that many students had probably already taken a lot of the courses required. So by listing some of the applicable courses, those students may have realized they only had a few courses left before completing the minor and would therefore be interested. The Associates utilized the rhetorical appeal of logos to draw the logical parallel between the Professional Studies Minor and the interdisciplinary nature of the classes.

The Associates made sure to emphasize skills that students might be interested in and that would correspond to their line of work. The program description and quotes on the poster established the reputation, or ethos. They also highlighted the clearly stated goals and objectives of the program to relay a sense of confidence in its ability to enhance any students’ educational experience and skill set.

CUPID Connection

Mia and Chelsea also incorporated the CUPID logo, the power symbol, in the design of the document. This association of the symbol and emphasis on the connection to Professional Writing will brand the minor and the studio for the audience. In order to add some visual interest to the textual content, they broke up the text boxes using line rules and shading, intentionally leaving the larger boxes white so they could use the CUPID/PWR background Chelsea created. By integrating the logo into the fundamental design of the poster, the team hoped that the branding would resonate with the posters’ viewers and inspire further interest in materials with the same logo.