Rhetorical Analysis of a Nail Art Poster

Student’s Name

Professor’s Name

Course

Date

Rhetorical Analysis of a Nail Art Poster

The poster portrays a crystal clear and glamorous image of nail art. The poster is an advertisement of the nail art business that attempts to capture the attention of a potential customer, particularly women. It is through the use of various aspects such as images, words, type of font, and colors that enable the designer of this poster to pass a message. The main objective of this poster is to increase the customer base and hence an increase in sales for the nail art business.

The designer of this beautiful and eye-catching poster is a beauty therapist who has specialized in nail art. The main aim of the poster is to attract women to the nail art business through its fusion of color and beauty of the nails. The designer is well-equipped with nail art techniques, as demonstrated by the systematic coloring and unique drawings in the nails. The drawings on the nails compel women to recognize the beauty related to glamorous nail art, such as the ones portrayed by the poster. The audience of this poster is mainly women, as nail art is considered a feminine feature that enhances the beauty of a woman.

The choice of this poster as a form of communication media is facilitated by its ability to generate immediate visual representation on the minds of the readers. Posters that depict compelling images and text attracts the reader’s attention and ignites the desire to understand the objective of the poster. Second, posters offer prolonged exposure to the readers, and it is because of this reason that the message is passed for as long as the poster is hanging (Jose et al. 67). Third, posters have extensive coverage, and the information it is attempting to relay can as many potential audiences as possible. It is considered that posters positioned around high-traffic points where there is a high possibility of being noticed are the most effective. Finally, posters are relatively affordable to design and install as compared to other forms of communication media. The aspect of affordability makes posters useful for conducting a campaign targeting the members of the public.

The rhetorical purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe the message of the above poster and establish the way it impacts the audience. The analysis focuses on identifying the designer and developing a means through which the message and the audience interact. Therefore, the project involves incorporating the application of rhetorical tenets to examine the argument that the poster’s message is trying to portray (Gries 381). In essence, the rhetorical purpose of this paper is to describe how the message and the drawings of the poster are developed and to consider if the approach employed is effective in passing the intended message.

The creation of this rhetorical analysis project changed my rhetorical approach of using Toulmin analysis to using the rhetorical triangle. The rhetorical triangle is the most effective for conducting a rhetorical analysis because, unlike Toulmin’s analysis; it has only three parts to evaluate and conclude the analysis (Katsoni, V., et al 95). Toulmin analysis makes the process of analysis both tiresome and time-consuming since it has six parts to focus on for making analysis (Ribeiro 98). Additionally, the rhetorical triangle is the most suitable and relevant for analysis posters in terms of image and text.

The nail drawings presented by the designer and the choice of letters used are meant to enhance the effectiveness of the poster. The designer used a bigger font size in writing the name of the business “Nail Art World,” which appears on top of the poster. The designer provides a short description of the business “Glamour Fingertip Leads the Fashion” by the use of smaller fonts. The text of the poster also provides the telephone number and the address of the business. The drawings in the poster portray the fingernails of a woman that are beautifully decorated. The drawings of the fingers are surrounded by colorful flowers whose depiction reflects the drawings on the nails. The use of flowers usually implies beauty and glamorous feeling. The designer is, however, using the flowers to represent the beauty that is evident in his nail art. The blend of colors at the background of the poster is crucial in showing the artistic skills of the designer in blending colors to achieve a lovely artwork on the customer’s nails.

The author’s use of key elements plays a crucial role in furthering the rhetorical purpose of this paper. The use of critical elements such as nail drawings, color, and use of different fonts in describing the text of the poster is considered both attractive and convincing to the reader. The unique choice of words and images is fundamental in developing experience about the impact of nail art on women. Additionally, the designer employs contrasting colors at the background of the poster, possibly to make the text of the poster visible (Gries 381). It is important to note that every aspect of a poster, however small, plays a significant role in passing the message to the intended audience. The image and words depicted by the poster are easy to understand; hence it does not require one to conduct more research to understand the message of the poster.

The decision to develop a rhetorical analysis of the above poster was effective as a way of establishing its effectiveness in attracting the attention of the target audience. The analysis also effective in understanding how different aspects of the poster can compel the audience to like the nail art business. In essence, the analysis was crucial in understanding how the poster impacts the decision of the intended audience. Additionally, the project was beneficial in the exploration of different communication media that can be useful in passing information to a large group of acquisition of the in-depth knowledge o about the significance of posters as a communication medium.

Conclusively, I believe this poster has done well in the advertisement for the nail art business. The ad does well in grabbing the attention of the target audience and giving one the interest of having such nail art, which is the primary goal of the ad. The use of perfectly matching colors in the advertisement demonstrates the designer’s knowledge of different matching colors. The poster’s message that is intended to reach the target audience is easy to understand as it does not require research or in-depth analysis. However, I would advise that the designer should use more bright colors that grab the audience’s attention from far.

Work Cited

Gries, Laurie. “Advances in Visual Rhetorical Analysis.” The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research Methods, 2019, pp. 381.

Jose, Rui, et al. “Pins and Posters: Paradigms for Content Publication on Situated Displays.” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 33, no. 2, 2013, pp. 64-72.

Katsoni, V., et al. “A Theoretical Framework of Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle for a Greek Medical Tourism Providers’ Web Evaluation Strategy.” Archives of Economic History, vol. 28, no. 2 (2016): 93-109.

Ribeiro, Henrique Jales. “In the Face of Relativism: Stephen Toulmin’s Latest Views on Rhetoric and Argumentation.” Revista Filosófica de Coimbra, vol. 47, 2015, pp. 95-109.