Roger Cassi
Persuasive Writing
Graphic/Video Critique
November 24, 2008


An image can say an infinite amount of things. Many times images alone can say more to a person then any well-written speech. In an instant a well-executed image can scare, excite, bring forward feelings of happiness or sadness, and even persuade. The only limitation of an image is the artists mind and imagination. Combine powerful images with powerful speech and you have created a persuasion tool that should be feared by all that aim to denounce your argument. I have recently come across two great examples of these types of persuasion tools regarding the issue of legalizing marijuana. First was a poster, which lacked a creative direction to really drive home their point in the prospects minds. I also found a video, which subtly presented its stand on the issue. With little tweaks in the executions both image and video could be a very effective persuasion tool.
The image I found was a poster for an organization that calls itself the “Stoner Army”. The posters main goal was to illustrate cold, hard facts about the war on drugs and its negativity on our society and economy. The information they provide is very eye opening, shocking, and interesting but it is not presented in a creative, eye-catching manner. The poster is very wordy and the font chosen for the words is not effective. It is very plain and boring and has no real emotion or power. Not only should the font be changed but also the amount of words should be cut a great deal. All the real statistical information on the poster should be removed. Instead they should only have a nice big headline and provide the website. The viewer can then access this website for the information that was removed form the poster. The image is strong and I would not change it too much. I made it a little larger and made his hat more defined but other then those two changes it is the same. Also the lack of color makes this poster a little boring. I decided to add red. White, and blue to stay true to the patriotic feel of the poster. The reason I made all these changes was to make the poster simple. The more simple, the more powerful an image can be.
The video I found also could use some improvement to make their argument more effective. The video was a news reports from a local television station located in Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles recently made it legal to provide medicine with vending machines including medical marijuana. The news team went to find out what this was all about. Even though other drugs such as pain killers, anti depressants, and even Viagra were being supplied via these vending machines the team only focused on medical marijuana. This was my first sign that they were going to present this as a negative thing. All throughout the video there were little signs and tones of disproval of such things. They presented the people behind this machine as stereotypical hippies instead of doctors that actually want to help people with ailments. The condescending manner in which this video was presented took away from their credibility. If they would of just shown their disproval straight out I would of accepted it and added it to the rebuttals for the legalization argument.
There are a great deal of images and videos out their trying to persuade us on any issue. Some can be very powerful persuading tools and some not. It is all in how the creator executes these images and videos. A well thought out image can be incredibly powerful. My advice to any art director in charge of persuading someone is to keep it simple and make you position on the issue clear and powerful.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe_6opRXOcg