Establishing a Rhetorical Framework for Professional Practice Through the Educational Design Studio: an Exploratory Study Protocol

Although there appears to be a clear link between design and rhetoric within design practice, our understanding of whether design students are developing necessary rhetorical skills as part of their visual communication design education remains relatively limited. This is problematic because the changing role of the designer demands the ability to not only foresee and anticipate future need and means for social interaction but to propose and clearly communicate to clients, stakeholders, and a diverse public the relevance, reliability, and desirability of particular design solutions. In this paper we discuss our method for exploring and examining how visual communication design students understand rhetoric and whether they are able to draw on this practice when discussing their work. Formal in-class studio critiques provide an opportunity to examine the use of rhetorical devices (ethos, pathos, and logos) and means to determine and analyse the current understanding of rhetorical practice in educational design studios. This study is part of on-going research and by presenting our method for this exploratory phase we aim to facilitate discussion around its viability.