Design and Layout in Illustrated Documents:

1
Design and Layout in Illustrated Documents
Towards a Model of Genre
Judy Delin University of Stirling John
Bateman University of Bremen Patrick
Allen University of Bradford
2
Overview
Background to the project What is document
genre? Rhetorical structure in document
design Some worked examples of genre
description Conclusions and directions
3
Background to the Project
GeM Genre and Multimodality Genre model of
illustrated document types Close work with
designers and layout professionals Practical
constraints on design tasks Aimed at generating
and transforming sample layouts by computer
4
Levels of Description Waller (1987)
Topic structure typographic effects whose
purpose is to display information about the
authors argument  the purpose of the
discourse Artefact structure those features of
a typographic display that result from the
physical nature of the document or display
and its production technology Access
structure those features that serve to make
the document usable by readers and the
status of its components clear
5
Levels of Description Bateman et al. 2000
Content Structure the structure of the
information to be communicated Rhetorical
Structure the rhetorical relationships
between content elements, the
argument Navigation Structure the ways in
which the intended mode(s) of consumption of
the document is/are supported Layout
Structure the nature, appearance and
position of elements on the page
6
Genre is constituted in...
The necessity to satisfy goals at these levels,
and to address constraints Canvas
constraints arising out of the
physical nature of the object Production
constraints arising out of the production tech
nology Consumption constraints arising out of
the way in which the object is
mediated/consumed
7
Rhetorical Structure in Document Design
How the content is argued and presented
Statementevidence Category example Action
purpose List element list element Documents
should be structured to preserve and signpost
these relationships (see e.g. Schriver 1997)
8
The notion of genre
Every text both reflects and constructs its
genre Genre boundaries erode and move genres
colonize one another expectations
change Description of genre space that allows
all to be related as a set of parameters of
variation Generating examples out of the space
allows creation of novel text designs as well as
production of existing genre examples
9
Rhetorical Structure in Document Design
Rhetorical structure theory (Mann and Thompson
1987)
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
Summary
Rhetorical structure is important, but can be
subverted by practical issues Practical
constraints must therefore be part of the
description of genre Practical constraints
differ between genres Close work with designers,
as well as document consumers, must be part of
academic research