This is my second time reading this issue of BLAST magazine, and still one of the most interesting things I noticed was the unique use of capitalization, font sizes, and layout used in the Manifesto. These techniques really pull a reader along and I feel as though it is closer to a thought process or realistic manner of speaking than ordinary prose. The bolded capitalization especially creates a sense of strong emotional presence behind the words, and adds to the violent rhetoric, which was somewhat off-putting. Quite often, I felt as though I were being yelled at through the page. The unique spacing makes it seem as though the words confined to a single column are almost a side thought. This style helps these pages go much faster than the rest of the magazine, since each one is taken up with giant letters and occasionally with big empty spaces.
The unique presentation of the manifesto should have made the following text seem bland, but to me, it added to the rest of the text. It made me interested to see what the rest of the magazine had to say, and thus I paid more attention to the text following the Manifesto than I probably would have otherwise.
Comments
Lauren Mitchell
Mon, 02/25/2013 - 18:43
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I agree that the presentation
I agree that the presentation of the magazine, particularly using capitalization and large type, invokes a violence of rhetoric. However, more signifcant to me is the use of white space on the page in general. The type is often arranged, particularly during the manifesto, to take up only half a line, or even less. There is also a significant amount of blank pages included, which seems the opposite presentation of the publication s we've read previously, which all attempted to cram as many words as possible onto one page of text. The space in Blast implies power and superiority by seeming above this petty push for space.
Amy Bunselmeyer
Mon, 02/25/2013 - 19:40
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I like your phrase "emotional
I like your phrase "emotional presense behind the words." For me, reading that first manifesto was very emotional in the sense that I got very caught up in it as I was reading, and was very tense and worked up by the time I reached the end. I think the rhetoric as well as all of the formatting details that you described went in to creating this effect. You described it as being somewhat off-putting. I agree with that to a certain extent, because it was definitely overwhelming and a bit crazy. However, I also found it to be really interesting, and I was impressed at the emotional effect it created.