Design Idea File 1:
Choose an image you find attractive, well-executed, or related to your academic and professional interests, and analyze it according to DD Ch. 1: how does it elicit an emotional impression about the author (ethos) and the user’s feelings (pathos)?
Below is the first page to a syllabus to a writing intensive course I took in the Fall of 2020. The design and layout is exceptionally pleasing to me. The color choices in fonts; the various fonts and font sizes; the blocked and lined columns and rows all work to create a syllabus that is easy on the eyes both in aesthetic and in navigation. Everything necessary is clearly listed in clearly separate and a well-headed, well-organized manner. All the information needed on a first page is listed in a strategically scattered and titled way that isolates the information to be easily located and used.
As someone who is increasingly convinced and encouraged that her interests and passions may lie in teaching (specifically teaching, along with research work, in linguistics), I find myself considering what it means and entails to teach. An obvious component that is often overlooked as important is the syllabus. I do not mean that it’s importance and necessity to the course is forgotten or underscaled, but that the importance of a beautiful, pretty and functional syllabus is swept aside. A syllabus should be user friendly, in an appealing way that helps students easily navigate and find what may be sought. If a syllabus is user friendly with a well thought out and pleasingly laid design and setup, this makes for a less stressful course for students as well as, consequently, instructors.
This equation is why the emotional impression that a syllabus is important when it comes to reducing student anxiety and stress through conveying the instructor’s effort and ethos and passion for the course and subject. You get a taste from the syllabus who and what kind of person the instructor is and will be for the course. The emotional reaction to that ethos is relief and warmth and stress reduction, and these pleasant reactionary feelings are the user/student pathos. This is why the above syllabus is so impactful to me. It is from almost two years ago, almost fours semesters ago; and yet I remember this specific syllabus for it’s pleasing aesthetic as well as it’s clear and easy to navigate layout. This is the sort of syllabus I would like to create for any courses in my future career, and the kind of syllabus and document design I would like my students to remember me for.