Purpose Statement

My purpose in this communication is to inform students about collegiate dance teams and the amount of time, work and dedication that is involved.  Not many people know how much work actually goes into this sport, so it is motivating for me to be able to educate more people about the “daily life” of a dancer.  My audience will be college students, specifically ones that normally go to sporting events that the dance team performs at, which includes basketball and volleyball games.  A majority of students that attend the games are athletes themselves or have an interest in sports.  Because of this, I want to try and relate to them and prove that dance is a sport just like volleyball, basketball, or any other sport they may be involved in.  Athleticism, dedication, and hard work are required to be a dancer, just in different forms.  I hope that my audience will have more respect and a better understanding of dance as a sport after this communication.  During the time of communication it will still be basketball season/switching to volleyball season, which is important because that is when the student body is able to witness performances from the dance team.  The audience will view the blog post in a more relaxed setting so there will not be too much pressure, yet they still will most likely be expecting something entertaining, and something that keeps their attention.

Design Plan

Medium and Production:

I will be using a range of photographs as my medium.  I want to include all types of photographs including action shots, portraits, and symbolic photos.  I also want to include some involving setting.  Because my topic is dance, action shots will help to portray what exactly we do on a daily basis, at practice or performances.  Portraits will help to portray the rewarding aspect of dance.  I want to use portraits to demonstrate the friendships I have made, as well as express the various emotions that I have felt throughout the dance season this year.  For my symbolic pictures I want to include close up shots of what people associate with dance: dance shoes and costumes/uniforms.  I think this will help to educate people more about the specifics they may not know about dance.  Finally for my setting photos, I want to include pictures of where we practice as well as perform: those being the dance room and the university gym: Neil Carey Arena. 

Strategies:

Ethos – My topic is something I directly relate to, and something I will be able to educate people on based on experience I have had.  This gives me credibility as the author, and I feel that the audience will be able to take in the information I am giving them without questioning it.  To demonstrate ethos I can use pictures that include myself as the subject, or pictures that are not considered generic – some may be considered “behind the scenes” shots. 

Pathos – Some of the pictures I want to include will exhibit a happy persona, others may be considered reflective (symbolic photos), and some may show intensity and hard work.  As far as color and style of the presentation, I want to edit the photos and emphasize certain elements.  This includes cropping, coloring only one object in the photo, or adjusting the focus.  This will make it easier for my audience to understand what is going on and what it is that I want them to see.  I want to use bright colors (or highlight parts of a photo so they appear bright) for emphasis, but at the same time I don’t want the presentation to come off as boring or dull by using neutral colors, and not too intense with colors like black or red. 

Logos – For each of my slides, they will only consist of 1-3 pictures, and a caption (excluding the cover page).  The pictures will use most of the space, with the captions either on the side, or above/below depending on the orientation/cropping of the picture.  I will be sure to consider alignment when designing my photo essay.  I want the text to be aligned with the pictures, and everything on the slide to be aligned vertically and horizontally.  This will give the essay a professional appeal and create unity.  For my typeface I either want to use modern or sans serif.  Sans serif would demonstrate my goal of informing and educating well, and the fonts are very straightforward – they get the job done.  The modern fonts, however, give an elegant feeling, and they are a little more formal than the sans serif fonts. 

Arrangement:

My goal is to inform my audience, so some of my pictures may get their own slide, while similar pictures may be side by side on the same slide.  When I show setting, I want to include the two different settings (dance room and gym) side by side, in order to compare the two and show what each one means to me.  My symbolic photos will be on separate slides.  I am not comparing anything with these photos, and I think they will have a greater impact if they are the main focus of the slide.  As far as my action shots and portraits, I want to emphasize the work being done, but in their proper setting.  I may have action shots in the dance room on the same slide, and action shots of performances on the same slide. 

Photo Essay

Closing Comments

As far as medium and production, I included all of the types of photos that I planned on using: action shots, portraits, symbolic photos, and setting photos.  I would have liked to have used more pictures that showed facial expressions during a performance, but I definitely included portraits that showcased friendships and camaraderie.  I included photos of both settings like I had planned, as well as photos of uniform like I had planned.

Concerning strategies, I think I portrayed ethos the best of the three.  I included some pictures of myself to show I have personal experience with this topic, and I believe that gave me a lot of credibility as an author.  I believe I achieved pathos fairly well in my presentation, in the sense that I followed my design plan and included what I wanted to.  I adjusted the focus of most of the photos and I used light colors, but I did not color certain portions of pictures like I had planned on doing.  As far as logos, I used a different font than I had intended but the organization and design of the slides turned out how I wanted them to.  I had originally planned on placing my symbolic photos on their own slides, but I ended up placing them on the same slide, side by side.  I still think they were just as effective because my caption was able to tie the two pictures together.