Rhetorical Analysis Of The Beale Street Music Festival

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In May, Memphians get together to celebrate our love for the city. Events include a half-marathon, barbeque competition, and my personal favorite, the Beale Street Music Festival. I have created an advertisement for the three-day music festival and hope to persuade locals to attend through my use of rhetorical appeals.
While thinking about rhetorical appeal, ethos, I chose images that would support my credibility as an author. The images within the letters are from the 2016 Beale Street Music Festival and give an accurate depiction of what viewers could expect if they choose to attend the event this year: bands on a stage and a foreground packed with an excited crowd. Additionally, I chose to include the festival’s official logo to promote …show more content…

First, I chose to contrast the color-filled letters with a black background. Then, to increase vibrancy, I saturated each of the letters’ photos with color tint. Altogether, the brightly colored letters catch viewers’ attention. Recently I read an article written by Roy Fox which explains that transitions in color tones, from cool to warm for example, can help viewers to participate with an advertisement and undergo a transformation themselves. (Fox, 1994) I applied this concept as I created my advertisement, using colors that transitioned from cool blue to red hot. The overall effect I hope to achieve is that by the time viewers read the red “F”, they feel excitement about this year’s festival and are motivated to participate. Though I could have created this same effect with a variety of color gradiations, I chose to start with the color blue. Not only does this choice increase the drama of the “warming effect”, but the color holds significance to locals and the city of Memphis. My audience is already in love with the blue through their experiences with the NBA Grizzlies, University of Memphis and the Tigers, and listening to B.B. King and blues music. I hope that this preexisting fondness opens viewers up to my message and experiencing the